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THE SPELL OF 
THE HEART OF FRANCE 



THE SPELL SERIES 

Each volume with one or more colored plates 
and many illustrations from original drawings 
or special photographs. Octavo, decorative 
cover, gilt top, boxed. Per volume, $3.00 

By Isabel Anderson 

THE SPELL OF BELGIUM 
THE SPELL OF JAPAN 
THE SPELL OF THE HAWAIIAN 
ISLANDS AND THE PHILIPPINES 

By Caroline Atwater Mason 
THE SPELL OF ITALY 
THE SPELL OF SOUTHERN SHORES 
THE SPELL OF FRANCE 

By Archie Bell 

THE SPELL OF CHINA 
THE SPELL OF EGYPT 
THE SPELL OF THE HOLY LAND 

By Keith Clark 

THE SPELL OF SPAIN 
THE SPELL OF SCOTLAND 

By W. D. McCrackan 

THE SPELL OF TYROL . 

THE SPELL OF THE ITALIAN LAKES 

By Edward Neville Vose 

THE SPELL OF FLANDERS 

By Burton E. Stevenson 

THE SPELL OF HOLLAND 

By Julia DeW. Addison 

THE SPELL OF ENGLAND 

By Nathan Haskell Dole 

THE SPELL OF SWITZERLAND 

By Andre Hallays (Translated by Frank 
Roy Fraprie) 
THE SPELL OF ALSACE 
THE SPELL OF THE HEART OF 
FRANCE 

^* 

THE PAGE COMPANY 
53 Beacon Street Boston, Mass. 



The Aqueduct of Louis XIF, Maintenon. 

From a water-color by Blanche McManus. 
(See page 4.J 




^ Spell of 
Heart of France 

THE TOWNS, VILLAGES AND 
CHATEAUX ABOUT PARIS 

my 

Andre Hallays 

JluthoT of " The %ell of Alsaw ' ' 

translated, with a foreword, by 

Frank Ro], Fraprie. S.M., F.R.P. 




ILLUSTRATED 








Copyright, jg20 
By The Page Company 



All rights reserved 



First Impression, October, 1920 



©CI,A601678 



THE COLONIAL PRESS 
C. H. SIMONDS CO., BOSTON, U. S. A, 



MCV 26 iS20 



'n^ I 



INTRODUCTION 

Whoever has read ''The Spell of Alsace" by- 
Andre Hallays will need no introduction to the 
present book. While the work on Alsace was 
undoubtedly read by many because of its timely 
publication just at the close of the Great War, 
when Alsace and all things French were uppermost 
in the public mind, these readers found themselves 
held and charmed as much by Monsieur Hallays' 
wondrous talent for visualizing landscape and for 
infusing the breath of Uf e into images of the past 
as by the inherent interest of the subjects on 
which he discoursed. 

His books are not travel books in the hack- 
neyed sense of the word. He does not. catalogue 
the things which should be seen, or describe in 
guidebook fashion those objects which are starred 
by Baedeker. He does not care to take us to see 
the things which "every traveler ought to see." 
He specializes in the obscure and the little-known. 
He finds that the beauty of out-of-the-way places 
and objects far from the beaten track of tourist 
traffic is as great as can be found in famous spots, 
and far more gratifying because of the fact that 



X Introduction 



it can be observed in solitude and enjoyed in 
moods undisturbed by the multitude. 

His manner of depicting landscapes is not by 
meticulous description, but by apparently casual 
touches of color, brilliantly illuminating what 
might to the ordinary observer seem monotonous 
and colorless landscapes. The inspired flash of 
description clings in the mind and gives an unfor- 
getable impression of landscape or architectural 
beauty. In Alsace he saw everywhere the red- 
tiled roofs, the pink sandstone of the Vosges, 
sharply contrasted against the green foliage of 
lush summer or the golden light of the declining 
sun. In the heart of France, as indeed also in 
Alsace, he sees, especially, architectural delights 
which are unknown to the guidebook and the 
multitude. 

In fact, it is with the eye of an architect that 
Monsieur Hallays has traveled through the outer 
suburbs of Paris, to write the essays which are 
included in this book. Everywhere he is impressed 
by the marvelous perfection of French architec- 
tm-al styles at their best, as he has found them 
in the regions which he traversed. He makes us 
see new beauty in churches and chateaux which 
we might pass with a casual glance had not his 
illuminating vision and description marked that 
which we might see and wonder at. 



Introduction xi 



The architectural settings, however, much as 
they may appeal to his professional eye, are but 
the beautiful frames in which to set a multitude of 
charming portraits of French worthies, from the 
most famous to the most obscure. He knows his 
French literature, and more particularly the 
memoirs and the letters which shed so vital a 
light on men and motives. He has resurrected 
more than one character from obscurity and for- 
getfulness. His pathetic picture of Bosc, the 
lover of nature, choosing his grave in the woods 
which he loved so well, in defiance of the imme- 
morial custom of his race, will seem perhaps more 
unusual to the European mind than to the Ameri- 
can, for the New England pioneer of necessity 
made his own family graveyard in the most 
accessible spot, and these little plots on farms and 
in woods dot American soil. His portrait of the 
mystic Martin of Gallardon is particularly timely 
in this era of revival of interest in psychical 
research. 

Written, as these essays were, through a series 
of years, his descriptions of Soissons and the 
valley of the Oise tell us of since-devastated 
regions as they were before the whirlwind and 
havoc of war swept over heroic France. Doubt- 
less the visitor today would find but a memory of 
some of the architectural beauties here described. 



xii Introduction 



Their memories are imperishable, and not the 
least of the merits of the book is that the guns of 
the Hun cannot destroy the written records of 
this beauty, though they may have blasted from 
the earth the stones and mortar which composed 

those sacred edifices. 

Frank Roy Fraprie. 
Boston, June 23, 1920. 





CONTENTS 








FAOB 




Introduction 


ix 


I. 


Maintenon . . . . . 


1 


II. 


La Ferte-Milon . . . . 


18 


III. 


Meaux and Germigny 


28 


IV. 


Sainte Radegonde 


42 


V. 


Senlis 


69 


VI- 


JUILLY :. 


71 


VIL 


The Chateau de Maisons . 


. 104 


VIII. 


The Valley of the Oise 


. 114 


IX. 


Gallardon .... 


. 135 


X. 


From Mantes to La Roche-Guyon 


. 169 


XI. 


NOYON ..... 


. 186 


XII. 


SOISSONS ...... I.; 


. 204 


XIII. 


BeTZ : ;. 


. 218 


XIV. 


Chantilly. . . . ;. 


. 250 


XV. 


The Chateau of Wideville 


. 281 


XVI. 


The Abbey of Livry . 


. 291 




Notes 


. 307 






. 313 



sm 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



The Aqueduct op Louis XIV 



Maintenon {in 



Frontispiece 

1 

3 

6 

10 



THE Duchess of 



full color) (See page 4) 
The Heart of France (map) 
Chateau op Maintenon 
Louis XIY . 
Madame de Montespan . 
Madame de Maintenon and 

Burgundy 
Jean Eacine 

Chateau of La Ferte-Milon 
Jacques Benigne Bossuet 
Cathedral op Meaux 
Fenelon and the Duke op Burgundy 
Louis Augustin Guillaume Bosc . 
Madame Roland .... 
Jean Marie Roland 
Portal op the Cathedral op Senlis 
The Pool at Juilly 
The Abbey op Port-Royal 
Jean de La Fontaine 
The Fountain of Neptune, Versailles (in full 

color) 
Chateau de Maisons 



14 
18 
22 
28 
30 
38 
44 
46 
50 
66 
72 
82 
86 

92 
104 



XV 



xvi List of Illustrations 

PAGE 

Fkanqois Maeib Aeouet Voltaire . . . Ill 

Church of Saint-Leu-d'Esserent . . . 122 
Napoleon's Bedchamber, Chateau de Com- 

PIEGNE . . ... . . 126 

Church op Tracy-le-Val .... 131 

Interior of the Church of Gallardon . . 135 

Notre Dame de Chartres . . . . 141 

Louis XVIII 154 

The Valley op the Seine, from the Terrace 

AT St. Germain (in full color) . . . 169 

Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux . . . . 174 

Henry IV 178 

Cardinal-Dug de Rohan-Chabot . . . 182 

Cathedral of Noyon ..... 190 
Faqade of the Abbey op Saint-Jean-des- 

ViGNES, SoissoNs (in full color) . . 212 

Princess op Monaco ..... 222 

Statue op Le Notre, at Chantilly . . 225 

The Temple of Friendship, Betz . . . 240 

The Salon op the Garden op Sylvie . . 250 

Theophile de Viau ..... 256 

The Great Conde ...... 265 

Chateau op Chantilly ..... 266 

Louis XV as Dauphin ..... 276 

Portrait op Mademoiselle de Clermont, by 

Nattier 278 

Cardinal Richelieu . . . . . 284 

ChIteau op "Wideville ..... 286 

The Present Abbey of Livry .... 291 




:wy*AHi lO T- 




THE HEART OF FRANCE 



The SPELL of the 
HEART of FRANCE 



MAINTENON 

THERE is in V Education Sentimentale a 
brief dialogue which reciirs to my memory 
whenever I enter a historic home. 
Frederic and Rosanette were visiting the cha- 
teau of Fontainebleau. As they stood before the 
portrait of Diane de Poitiers as Diana of the 
Nether World, Frederic ''looked tenderly at 
Rosanette and asked her if she would not like 
to have been this woman." 
" 'What woman?' 
" 'Diane de Poitiers!' 

"He repeated: 'Diane de Poitiers, the mistress 
of Henry II.' 

"She answered with a little, 'Ah!' That was 
all. 

"Her silence proved clearly that she knew noth- 
ing and did not understand, so to relieve her 
embarrassment he said to her, 

I 



2 The Spell of the Heart of Prance 

" 'Perhaps you are tired?' 

" 'No, no, on the contrary!' 

"And, with her chin raised, casting the vaguest 
of glances around her, Rosanette uttered this 
remark : 

" ^That brings hack memories/' 

"There could be perceived on her countenance, 
however, an effort, an intention of respect. . . ." 

That brings back memories. Rosanette does not 
know exactly what they are. But her formula 
translates — and with what sincerity ! — the 
charm of old chateaux and old gardens about 
which floats the odor of past centuries. She 
"yawns immoderately" while breathing this vague 
perfume, because she is unfamiliar with literature. 
Nevertheless, she instinctively feels and respects 
the melancholy and distinguished reveries of 
those who know the history of France. And 
besides, if these latter in their turn desired to 
express the pleasure which they feel in visiting 
historic places, I would defy them to find any 
other words than those which Rosanette herself 
uses. 

This pleasure is one of the most lively which 
can be felt by a loiterer who loves the past, but 
whose listless imagination requires, to set it in 
motion, the vision of old architecture and the 
suggestion of landscapes. It is also one of those 




From a drawing by Blanche McManus 

CHATEAU OF MAINTENON 



Maintenon S 



which can most easily be experienced. The soil 
of France is so impregnated with history! Every- 
where, "that brings back memories." 

It is, therefore, to seek "memories" that I 
visited Maintenon and its park on a clear and 
limpid October afternoon. I had previously read 
once more the correspondence of Madame de 
Maintenon and run through a few letters of 
Madame de Sevign^. My memory is somewhat 
less untrained than that of Rosanette. But, 
nevertheless, I am startled, on the day when I 
wish to learn again, to perceive how many things 
I have unlearned, if I ever knew them. 

The chateau of Maintenon dates from the six- 
teenth century. Since then it has been continued 
and enlarged without rigorous following of the 
original plan. It is built of stone and brick, 
worked and chiseled like the jewels of the French 
Renaissance. Its two unsymmetrical wings termi- 
nate, the one in a great donjon of stone, the other 
in a round tower ®f brick. Some parts have been 
restored, others have preserved their aspect of 
ancientness. . . . But here, as everywhere else, 
time has performed its harmonizing work, and 
what the centuries have not yet finished, the soft 
October light succeeds in completing. Diversity 
of styles, discordances between different parts of 



4 The Spell of tha Heart of France 



the construction, bizarre and broken lines traced 
against the sky by the inequalities of the roofs, the 
turrets, the towers and the donjon, neither dis- 
concert nor shock us. All these things fuse into 
a robust and elegant whole. The very contrasts, 
born of chance, appear like the premeditated 
fancy of an artist who conceived a work at once 
imposing and graceful. The artist is the autumn 
sun. 

Before the chateau extends a great park which 
also offers singular contrasts. Near the building 
are stiff parterres in the French style. Beyond, 
a long canal, straight and narrow, between two 
grassy banks, is pure Le Notre. But, on both 
sides of the canal, these stiff designs disappear 
and are replaced by vast meadows, fat and humid, 
sown with admirable clumps of trees; Le Notre 
never passed here. Nature and the seventeenth 
century are now reconciled, and the park of 
Maintenon presents that seductiveness common 
to so many old French parks which are ennobled 
by their majestic remnants of the art of Versailles. 

Its unusual beauty springs from the ruined 
aqueduct which crosses its whole width. These 
immense arcades, half crumbled to ruin, clothed 
with ivy and Virginia creeper, give a solemn 
melancholy to the spot. They are the remains of 
the aqueduct which Louis XIV started to con- 



Maintenon 



struct, to bring to Versailles the waters of the 
Eure, a gigantic enterprise which was one of the 
most disastrous of his reign. The gangs employed 
in this work were decimated by terrible epidemics 
caused by the effluvia of the broken soil. It is 
said that ten thousand men there met their 
death and fifty million francs were wasted. War 
in 1688 interrupted these works, ''which," says 
Saint-Simon, "have not since been resumed; 
there remain of them only shapeless monuments 
which will make eternal the memory of this cruel 
folly." And, in 1687, Racine, visiting at Main- 
tenon, described to Boileau these arcades as 
"built for eternity!" In the eighteenth century, 
the architects who were commissioned to con- 
struct the chateau of Crecy for Madame de 
Pompadour came to seek materials in the ancient 
domain of Madame de Maintenon. . . . These 
different memories are an excellent theme for 
meditation upon the banks of the grand canal, 
in whose motjonless waters is reflected this pro- 
digious romantic decoration. 

Within the chateau, we are allowed to visit the 
oratory, in which are collected some elegant wood 
carvings of the sixteenth century; the king's 
chamber, which contains some paintings of the 
seventeenth century; a charming portrait of 
Madame de Maintenon in her youth and another 



6 The Spell of the Heart of France 

of Madame de Thianges, the sister of Madame de 
Montespan; and lastly, the apartment of 
Madame de Maintenon. 

What is called the apartment of Madame de 
Maintenon consists of two narrow chambers, 
containing fm-niture of the seventeenth century; I 
know not if these are originals or copies. Two 
portraits attract our attention, one of Madame 
de Maintenon, the other of Charles X. 

The portrait of Madame de Maintenon is a 
copy of that by Mignard in the Louvre. "She 
is dressed in the costume of the Third Order of 
St. Francis; Mignard has embellished her; but it 
lacks insipidity, flesh color, whiteness, the air of 
youth; and without all these perfections it shows 
us a face and an expression surpassing all that 
one can describe; eyes full of animation, perfect 
grace, no finery and, with all this, no portrait 
surpasses his." (Letter from Madame de Cou- 
langes to Madame de Sevigne, October 26, 1694.) 
Madame de Coulanges does not consider as 
finery the mantle of ermine, the royal mantle 
thrown over the shoulders of the Franciscan 
sister. Louis XIV had required this of the 
painter, and it was one of the rare occasions on 
which he almost officially admitted the mysteri- 
ous marriage. This portrait, in truth, is one of 
the best works of Mignard. But, even without 




LOUIS XIV. 



Maintenon 7 



the witness of Madame de Coulanges, we would 
not have doubted that the artist had embelHshed 
his model. In 1694, Madame de Maintenon was 
fifty-nine. 

As to the portrait of Charles X, it is placed 
here to call to memory the fact that in 1830 the 
last of the Bourbons, flying from Rambouillet, 
came hither, ''in the midst of the dismal column 
which was scarcely hghted by the veiled moon" 
(Chateaubriand), and that he found asylum 
for a night in the chamber of Madame de 
Maintenon. 

^ :i: 4: H: 4: 4: 4: 

It was on December 27, 1674, that Madame 
Scarron became owner of the chateau, and the 
domain of Maintenon, for the sum of two hun- 
dred and fifty thousand hvres. Louis XIV gave 
her this present in recognition of the care which 
she had given for five years to the children of 
Madame de Montespan. At this time the mission 
of the governess, at first secret, had become a 
sort of official charge. The illegitimate offspring 
had been acknowledged in 1673. Madame Scarron 
had then left the mysterious house in which she 
dwelt ''at the very end of the Faubourg Saint- 
Germain . . . quite near Vaugirard." She ap- 
peared at court. But she had calculated the 
danger of her position; she dreamt of putting 



8 The Spell of the Heart of Prance 

herself out of reach of changes of fortune and of 
acquiring an "estabhshment." 

The letters which she then addressed to her 
spiritual director, Abbe Gobehn, were full of the 
tale of her fears and her sorrows. She desired a 
piece of property to which she could retire to 
lead the life of solitude and devotion, to which 
she then aspired. She finally obtained from 
Madame de Montespan and the King the gift of 
Maintenon, and, two months later, she wrote to 
her friend, Madame de Coulanges, her first 
impressions as a landed proprietor: 

''I am more impatient to give you news of 
Maintenon than you are to hear them. I have 
been here two days which seemed only a moment; 
my heart is fixed here. Do you not find it admir- 
able that at my age I should attach myself to 
these things like a child? The house is very 
beautiful: a little too large for the way I propose 
to run it. It has very beautiful surroundings, 
woodlands where Madame de Sevigne might 
dream of Madame de Grignan very comfortably. 
I would like to live here; but the time for that 
has not yet arrived." 

It never came. Madame de Maintenon — the 
King had given this name to Scarron's widow — 
remained at court to carry out her great purpose: 
the conversion of Louis XIV. Not that this 



Maintenon 9 



project was then clearly formed in her mind. 
But, little by little, she saw her favor increase, 
the King detach himself from Madame de Monte- 
span, and all things work together to assm-e her 
victory, which was to be that of God. So it was 
necessary for her to abandon her project of living 
in retirement, and to remain at Versailles upon the 
field of battle. She had hours of weariness and 
sadness; but, sustained by pride and devotion, 
she always returned to this court life, which, as 
La Bruyere expresses it, is a ''serious and melan- 
choly game which requires application." 

At first it was necessary that she should struggle 
against the caprices, the angers and the jealousies 
of Madame de Montespan; for a profound aversion 
separated the two women. "It is a bitterness," 
says Madame de Sevign^, ''it is an antipathy, 
they are as far apart as white is from black. 
You ask what causes that? It is because the 
friend (Madame de Maintenon) has a pride which 
makes her revolt against the other's orders. 
She does not like to obey. She will mind father, 
but not mother." At one time, the preaching of 
Bourdaloue and the imprecations of Bossuet had 
determined the King to break with Madame de 
Montespan (during Lent of 1675), and, before 
departing for the campaign in Flanders, Louis 
XIV had bidden farewell to the favorite in ^ 



10 The Spell of the Heart of France 

glazed room, under the eyes of the whole court. 
But when the King returned the work of the 
bigots was in vain. Madame de Montespan 
regained her ascendancy. ''What triumph at 
Versailles! What redoubled pride! What a solid 
establishment! What a Duchess of Valentinois! 
What a relish, even because of distractions and 
absence! What a retaking of possession!" (No 
one has expressed like Madame de S^vign^ the 
dramatic aspect of these spectacles of the court.) 
After this dazzhng reentry into favor, every one 
expected to see the position of Madame de 
Maintenon become less favorable. But she had 
patience and talent. Her moderation and good 
sense charmed the King, who wearied of the 
passionate outbursts of his mistress and who was 
soon 10 be troubled by the frightful revelations 
of the La Voisin affair. It is true that the Monte- 
span was succeeded by a new favorite. Mile, de 
Fontanges. But she was ''as beautiful as an 
angel and as foohsh as a basket." She was httle 
to be feared; her reign was soon over. And 
Madame de Maintenon continued to make the 
King acquainted with "a new country which 
was unknown to him, which is the commerce of 
friendship and conversation, without constraint 
and without evasion." But how many efforts 
and cares there still were before the day of defi- 




MADAME DE MONTESPAN 



Maintenon 11 



nite triumph, that is, until the secret marriage! 

In going through her correspondence, we j&nd 
very few letters dated from Maintenon. During 
the ten years which it took her to conquer and 
fix the King's affection, she made only rare and 
brief visits to her chateau. It is true that Louis 
XIV had commissioned Le N6tre 'Ho adjust this 
beautiful and ugly property." The domain had 
been increased by new acquisitions. But her 
position as governess, and later when she was lady 
of the bed-chamber to the Dauphiness, the \^ishes of 
Louis XIV kept Madame de 3.Iaintenon at court. 

The only time when she remained several 
months at Maintenon seems to have been in the 
spring of 1779; Madame de Montespan, whom 
the King was neglecting at the moment for Mile. 
de Ludres, had come to beg shelter of the friend 
of her friend, in order to be delivered under her 
roof of her sixth child. Mile, de Blois. This 
memory has a special value, if we wish to become 
well acquainted with the characteristic morahty 
of the seventeenth century. Observe, in fact, 
that this child was adulterous on both sides; that 
Madame de Montespan, abandoned, could only 
hate Madame de Maintenon, more in favor than 
ever; that, five years later, Madame de IMain- 
tenon was to marry Louis XIV, and finally that, 
in spite of this curious complaisance, Madame 



n The Spell of the Heart of France 

de Maintenon had none the less the most sure 
and vigilant conscience in regard to everything 
which touched on honor. ... It is most likely 
that others will discover some day terrible indeli- 
cacies in acts which we today think very innocent. 
There is an evolution in casuistry. 

From the epoch of the foundation of Saint Cyr, 
Madame de Maintenon had less time than ever 
for her property. She lived her life elsewhere, 
divided between the King and the House of St. 
Louis. When her niece married the Duke of 
Ayen she gave her Maintenon, but reserved the 
income for herself but it was to St. Cyr that she 
retired and there she died. 

Under the great trees of the park, where the 
verdure is already touched with pale gold, in the 
long avenue which is called the Alley of Racine, 
because the poet is supposed to have planned 
Athalie there (I do not know if tradition speaks 
the truth), I recall that letter to Madame de 
Coulanges which I transcribed a little way back. 
"My heart is fixed here," said Madame de Main- 
tenon. But, the more I think of it the less it 
seems to me that her heart was ever capable of 
becoming attached to the beauty of things. The 
"very beautiful surroundings" of Maintenon 
pleased her because this chateau was the proof 



Maintenon ' 13 



of the King's favor, because, after the miseries of 
her childhood, after the years of trials and 
anxieties, she finally felt that her ''estabhshment" 
was a fact. But there is something like an accent 
of irony in her way of vaunting the ''woodlands 
where Madame de Sevigne might dream of Madame 
de Grignan very comfortably," for there never 
was a woman who dreamed less and scorned 
dreaming more than this beautiful tutoress, pos- 
sessed of good sense, sound reason and a poor 
imagination. 

She was very beautiful and remained so even 
to an advanced age. She was about fifty when 
the Ladies of Saint Cyr drew this marvelous 
portrait of her: ''She had a voice of the most 
agreeable quality, an affectionate tone, an opea 
and smiling countenance, the most natural ges- 
tures of the most beautiful hands, eyes of fire, 
such affectionate and regular motions of a free 
figure that she outshone the most beautiful 
women of the court. . . . Her first glance was 
nnposing and seemed to conceal severity. . . . 
Her smile and her voice opened the cloud. . . ." 
(This is better than all the Mignards.) Her 
conversation was delightful: Madame de Sevign4 
bears witness to it, and that at a time when her 
testimony cannot be questioned, since nothing 
could then cause her to foresee the prodigious 



14 The Spell of the Heart of France 

destiny of Madame Scarron. She had a sovereign 
grace in her apparel, although the material of her 
clothing was always of extreme simplicity; and 
this amazed her confessor, the excellent and 
respectful Abbe Gobehn, who said to her: ''When 
you kneel before me I see a mass of drapery fall- 
ing at my feet with you, which is so graceful that 
I find it almost too much for me." 

She knew that she was irresistibly beautiful, 
and her confessor had assuredly taught her noth- 
ing by telling her that her commonest robes fell 
into folds about her with royal elegance. There 
was no coquettishness in her. 

No one today can have any doubt of her integ- 
rity and her virtue. Bussy-Rabutin has certified 
this and he was not accustomed to give such a 
brevet without good reasons. But, to refute the 
calumnies of Saint-Simon, nothing more is required 
than to read the letters of Madame de Mainte- 
non. They have a turn and an accent which 
cannot deceive. 

The whole rule of her conduct was double. 
She was virtuous from devotion and from care 
for her reputation. The second sentiment was 
certainly much more important to her than the 
first. She has herself confessed it: "I would like 
to have done for God all that I have done in the 
world to keep my reputation." 




MADAME DE MAINTENON AND THE DUCHESS OF BURGUNDY 



Maintenon 15 



"I wanted to be somebody of importance," she 
said. This explains everything: her ambition, her 
prudence, her moderation and her scruples. She 
cares Uttle for the advantages which her high 
position could give her; she seeks neither titles, 
nor honors, nor donations. She wishes for the 
approbation of honest men; she desires ''good 
glory, bonne gloire,'' as Fenelon has expressed it. 
We find in her, mingled in proportions which it 
is impossible to measure, a passion for honor 
quite in the manner of Corneille, and a much less 
noble apprehension of what people will say about 
her. But if this is truly her character — and, 
when we have read her letters, it is impossible to 
retain a doubt on this point — she is incapable 
of the weaknesses of which she has been accused. 
"I have a desire to please and to be well thought 
of, which puts me on my guard against all my 
passions." That is truth itself, and good psy- 
chology. But even more fine and more pene- 
trating appears to me the remark once made 
about Madame de Maintenon by a woman of 
intellect: "This is what has passed through my 
mind . . . and has made me beheve that all the 
evil they have said about her is quite false: it is 
that if she had had something to reproach her- 
seK about in regard to her morals, if she had had 
weakneesee of a certain kind, she would haye had 



16 The Spell of the Heart of France 

to fight less against vainglory. Humility would 
have been as natural to her as it was foreign to 
her, I mean in the bottom of her heart; for exter- 
nally every appearance denied that secret pride of 
which she complains to her spiritual director. It 
was therefore necessary that this should have 
been a secret esteem for herself. Now how could 
she esteem herself, with the uprightness which was 
part of her, if she had not known herself to be 
estimable, she who in her conversations paints so 
well those whose reputation has been tarnished by 
evil conduct. ... I do not know if my thought is 
good; but it has pleased me." Thus in the eight- 
eenth century, Madame de Louvigny wrote to 
La Beaumelle, the first historian of Madame de 
Maintenon. The analysis is just and delicate. 

One of the grievances of Saint-Simon against 
Madame de Maintenon is the manner in which 
she used her credit to displace certain prelates of 
noble birth, preferring to them "the crass igno- 
rance of the Sulpicians, their supreme platitude 
. . . the filthy beards of Saint-Sulpice." Chance 
has brought to my notice a copy of the letters of 
Madame de Maintenon which belonged to Scherer 
and which he annotated when reading it, I find 
there this remark penciled upon a page: ''Neither 
Jesuit, nor Jansenist, but Sulpician." It is impos- 
sible to give a better definition of the devotion of 



Maintenon 17 



Madame de Maintenon. She had the reasonable 
piety which is the mark of Saint Sulpice. From 
her family and from her infancy she had preserved 
a sort of remnant of Calvinism: she did not like 
the mass and was pleased with psalm singing. 
This was to estrange her from the Jesuits. On 
the other hand, Jansenism had an air of inde- 
pendence, almost of revolt, which must have dis- 
pleased her intelligence, with its love of order. 
She was wisely and irreproachably orthodox. Her 
grave, tranquil, active piety reveals a conscience 
without storms and an imagination without fever. 

Thus she had great pride and little vanity, 
great devotion and little fervor. She had much 
common sense in everything. She loved her glory 
passionately and her God seriously. She was 
charitable, as was enjoined by the religion which 
she practiced with a submissive heart. But we 
know neither a movement of sensitiveness nor an 
outburst of tenderness in her hfe. She had a 
very lofty soul, a very clear intelligence, a very 
rigid will. She was desperately dry. 

Did this Sulpician, spiritual, cold and ambitious, 
ever feel the charm of the great trees of her park? 
I doubt it. 



II 

LA FERTS-MILON 

RACINE was about twelve years old when 
he left La Fert4-Milon, to go first to the 
college of Beauvais and later to Port-Royal 
des Champs. He passed his infancy there in the 
house of his paternal grandmother, Marie des 
Moulins, the wife of Jean Racine, controller of 
the salt warehouse; he was thirteen months old 
when his mother died and three years old at the 
death of his father. Of these early years we know 
nothing except that the grandmother loved the 
orphan more than any of her own children, an 
affection of which Racine retained the most 
tender memory. 

He later often returned to the town of his birth, 
where his sister Marie had remained and had 
married Antoine Riviere. The two families 
remained united; Racine handled the interests of 
his brother-in-law at Paris; the Rivieres sent 
Racine skylarks and cheeses; and when Racine's 
children were ill, they were sent to their aunt to 
be cared for in the open air. And these were 

18 




JEAN RACINE 



La Ferte-Milon 19 

almost all the bonds between Racine and La 
Ferte-Milon. 

It is therefore probable that almost nothing at 
La Fert^-Milon today will awaken reminiscences 
of the poet. However, let us seek. 

At the exit from the station a long street, a 
sort of faubourg of low houses, with their naive 
signs swinging in the wind, leads us to the bridge 
across the Ourcq. On the opposite bank, the little 
old town with its little old houses clambers up 
the abrupt slope of a hill which is crowned by the 
formidable ruin of the stronghold. Here and 
there, at the water's edge are remnants of walls, 
towers and terraced gardens, which, with the 
meadows and the poplars of the valley, compose 
a ravishing landscape. 

Once across the bridge, behold Racine. It is a 
statue by David d'Angers. It is backed by the 
mayoralty and surrounded by a portico. Racine 
wears a great wig, which is not surprising; but, 
notwithstanding his great wig, he is half naked, 
holding up with his hand a cloth which surrounds 
his body and forms ''harmonious " folds. It is 
Racine at the bath. Near him stands a cippus, 
on which are inscribed the names of his dramatic 
works, from Athalie to Les frdres ennemis, the 
title of which latter is half concealed by the 
inevitable laurels. 



20 The Spell of the Heart of France 

While I was contemplating this academic but 
ridiculous image, a peasant, carrying a basket 
on his arm, approached me and delivered the fol- 
lowing discourse: ''This is Jean Racine, born in 
1639, died in 1699. And you read upon this 
marble the list of his dramatic works. He was 
born at La Ferte-Milon and I have at home parch- 
ments where one may see the names of the persons 
of his family; I possess also his baptismal font. 
I am, so to speak, the keeper of the archives of 
La Ferte. . . . The Comedie frangaise will come 
here April 23. . . . Racine had two boys and 
five girls. . . . There was a swan in his coat of 
arms; the swan is the symbol of purity. Fenelon, 
Bishop of Cambrai, has been compared to a swan. 
Fenelon, born in 1651 and dead in 1715, is the 
author of Tdemaque and of the Maximes des 
Saints. This last work embroiled him with 
Jacques Benigne Bossuet, in Latin Jacobus 
Benignus, Bishop of Meaux, who wrote Oraisons 
funehres and the Discours sur Vhistoire universelle, 
which he was unfortunately unable to finish. . . . 
My name is Bourgeois Parent, and here is my 
address. And you, what is your name? You 
would not belong to the Comedie frangaise? ^^ All 
this uttered in the voice of a scholar who has 
learned his lesson by heart, with sly and crafty 
winks. . . , I thank this bystander for his 



La Ferte-Milon 21 

erudition; I admit humbly that I do not belong 
to the Comedie frangaise and I take leave, not 
without difficulty, of this extraordinary ''Ra- 
cinian," who truly has the genius of transition, 
in the manner of Petit-Jean. 

In what house was Racine born? The accepted 
tradition is that his mother was brought to bed 
at No. 3, Rue de la Pescherie (now Rue Saint- 
Vaast); in this house hved the Sconin couple, 
the father and mother of Madame Racine. 
The old house has been demolished, and there 
remains of it nothing more than a pretty medal- 
lion of stone which represents the Judgment of 
Paris. This is inserted above a door in the 
garden of the new house. But, in the same 
street, there stands another house (No. 14) which 
belonged to the paternal grandparents of Jean 
Racine; it is here, according to other conjectures, 
that the author of Athalie was born. And these 
two houses are not the only ones at La Ferte 
which dispute the honor of having seen the birth 
of Racine. ... I will not get mixed up in the 
search for the truth. I have heard that the 
people of Montauban recently had recourse to an 
ingenious means of ending a quarrel of the same 
kind. No one knew in which house Ingres had 
been born; a furious controversy had arisen 
between various proprietors of real estate. It was 



22 The Spell of the Heart of France 

ended by a referendum. Universal suffrage gave 
its decision. Now the question is decided, irrevo- 
cably. 

There is another monument to the poet. Behind 
the apse of the church, in a little square, on top 
of a column, is perched an old bust more or less 
roughly repaired; at its foot has been placed a 
tawdry cast-iron hydrant. This is called the 
Racine Fountain. Decidedly La Fert^ is a poor 
place of pilgrimage: few relics, and the images of 
the saint are not beautiful! 

Fortunately, to recompense the pilgrim, there 
are in the two churches precious stained glass 
windows of the sixteenth century; those of Notre 
Dame, despite grievous restorations, are brilliant 
in coloring and free in design. The Saint Hubert 
is a good picture of almost Germanic precision, 
and, above the right-hand altar, the portraits of 
the donors and their children are natural and 
graceful. Above all, there is the admirable fagade 
of the old castle of Louis of Orleans, an enormous 
crenelated fortress, flanked with towers, whose 
naked grandeur is set off by sculptures, marvel- 
ous but mutilated, alas! There are statues of 
armed champions framed in elegant foliage, and, 
above the arch of the great door, the celebrated 
Coronation of the Virgin, one of the masterpieces 
of French sculpture; a cast of it can be studied 



La Ferte-Milon 23 

at the Trocadero, and there we can admire at 
full leisure the truth of the attitudes and the 
freedom of the draperies. But no one can imagine 
the beauty of this composition, unless he has seen 
it reheved against and shining from the ferocious 
wall of the citadel, colored with the golden green 
of mosses, while tufts of yellow wallflowers, grow- 
ing among the dehcate carvings of the wide frame, 
give an exquisite sumptuousness to the whole 
decoration. 

Returning to the terrace on the other side of 
the castle, which dominates the houses, the towers 
and the gardens of the village, I find myself before 
the framework of a great tent which is being 
erected for the approaching performance by the 
ComMie frangaise, and find myself brought back 
from the Middle Ages to Racine. These juxta- 
positions no longer surprise us, since we are now 
so accustomed to ramble through history and 
Hterature as through a great second-hand store, 
stopping at all the curiosities which amuse our 
eclectic taste. I imagine, however, that a man 
of the seventeenth century, a contemporary of 
Racine, would have been stupified to think that 
any one could enjoy the verses of Berenice and at 
the same time be sensitive to the charm of the 
old Gothic images, carved upon the wall of this 
"barbarous" donjon. Time has done its work; 



24 The Spell of the Heart of France 

it has effaced the prejudices of centuries; it has 
allowed us to perceive that the sculptor of the 
Coronation of the Virgin and the poet who wrote 
Berenice were, after all, sons of the same race 
and servants of the same ideal. No, this is not a 
vain dream; there is something Racinian in the 
statues of La Ferte-Milon. They possess purity, 
nobility and elegance. Has not this Virgin, 
kneeling before the throne of the Lord, while 
two angels ceremoniously hold up the train of 
her royal mantle, has she not, I say, the attitude 
and the touching grace of Racine's Esther at the 
feet of Ahasuerus? 

At the edge of this terrace, I have before me 
the delightful landscape of the little hills of the 
Ourcq valley, and, as I contemplate the soft and 
beautiful undulations covered by the forest of 
Retz, I am more and more struck by the harmony 
of this charming spot. 

I think of the pages which Taine placed at the 
beginning of his essay on La Fontaine, in which 
he discovers in the French landscape the very 
qualities of the Gallic mind. You remember this 
picture of the land of Champagne: '^The moun- 
tains had become hills; the woods were no longer 
more than groves. . . . Little brooks wound 
among bunches of alders with gracious smiles. . . . 
All is medium-sized here, tempered, inclined 



La Ferte-Milon 25 

rather toward delicacy than toward strength." 
How exact all this is! There is a perfect concord- 
ance between the genius of La Fontaine and the 
aspect of the country of his birth. In the valley 
of the Marne, if we follow one of those long high- 
ways which stretch, straight and white, between 
two ranks of trembling poplars, it seems unnat- 
ural not to see the animals leave the fields and 
come to talk to us upon the roadway. 
These French landscapes have still another sort 
of beauty, and, in the country of Racine, this 
beauty is more striking than elsewhere; its design 
has an incomparable grace and nobleness. The 
hues of the different planes intermingle without 
ever breaking one another. The undulations 
unfold with a caressing, almost musical, slowness. 
These hillocks which surround La Ferte-Milon 
have, in truth, the sweetness of a verse of Berenice. 
They have the flexibility of rhythm of a chorus 
from Esther: 

Just as a docile brook 
Obeys the hand which turns aside its course, 
And, allowing the aid of its waters to be divided, 

Renders a whole field fertile; 
Oh, God, Thou sovereign master of our wills. 
The hearts of kings he thus within Thy hand. 

We must repeat these verses upon the terrace 
of La Ferte-Milon, at the foot of which the Ourcq 
ramifies among the gardens and the meadows; 
and we must follow upon the horizon the elegant 



26 The Spell of the Heart of France 

sinuosity of the low hills, to appreciate the mys- 
terious and subtle harmony which was established 
for life between the imagination of Racine and 
the sweet countryside of his infancy. 

I did not wish to leave the town of Racine 
without following the Faubourg de Saint- Vaast 
up to the wooded hillside where the Jansenists 
who took refuge at La Ferte-Milon often came to 
pray. In 1638, the recluses of Port-Royal had 
been dispersed; Lancelot had taken refuge at 
La Ferte-Milon, with the parents of one of his 
pupils, Nicolas Vitart (the Vitarts were relatives 
of the Racines); then M. Antoine Le Maitre and 
M. de Sericourt had come to join him. They 
long led a life of complete seclusion in the little 
house of the Vitarts; but in the summer of 1639 
they sometimes decided to go out after supper. 
Then they went into the neighboring wood, "upon 
the mountain," which overlooks the town, and 
there they conversed of good things. They never 
spoke to anybody; but when they returned at 
nine o'clock, walking in single file and telling 
their beads, the townsfolk, seated before their 
doors, rose in respect and kept silence as they 
passed. (It is still easy to imagine this admirable 
scene in the little streets of La Ferte; the archi- 
tecture has changed so little!) The good odor, 
as Lancelot calls it, which was spread by the three 



La Ferte-Milon 27 



Jansenists, remained as a living influence in the 
little town. And this sojourn of the hermits 
brought Port-Royal near to the Racine family. 
The sister of the poet's grandmother was already 
cellaress at the abbey; his aunt will later take the 
veil; his grandmother will end her life at Port- 
Royal des Champs; and the young Jean Racine 
(he entered the world only after the hermits had 
departed) will have for masters Lancelot, Le 
Maitre and Hamon. . . . Later he will make a 
scandal at Port-Royal; he will rally his masters. 
But, in spite of this, their lessons will remain 
ineffaceable; and the author of the Cantiques 
spirituelles will desire to be buried at the foot of 
Hamon' s grave. On what did the destiny of the 
poet depend? Perhaps Esther and Athalie would 
never have been written if these three hermits, 
fleeing from persecution, had not come one day 
to ''Jansenize" La Fert6 and to converse about 
good things upon the "Mountain," as they called 
this pretty hillock of the Valois, with its soft and 
shadowy slopes. 



\ 



Ill 

MEAUX AND GERMIGNY 

WHILE the glacial downpours of this 
endless winter continue, I find pleas- 
ure in running over and completing 
the notes collected in the course of a stroll which 
I undertook on a warm and charming day last 
autumn. In weather as bad as this one can 
ramble only in memory, unless desirous of catch- 
ing influenza. 

***** ^ 

* 

I went to Meaux and to Germigny-l'Ev^que 
to discover, either at the episcopal residence or 
in Bossuet's country house, whatever may still 
recall the memory of the ''Eagle." 

To tell the truth, it was not the ''Eagle" who 
interested me on that day, but the man himself. 
I had recently read the remarkable portrait which 
forms the close of the beautiful study of M. 
Rebelliau, those pages which are so vivid and in 
which is sketched with so much relief and truth the 
figure "of an everyday Bossuet, sweet and simple.^' 
(Note 1.) It seemed to me that nowhere could 

28 




JACQUES BENIGNE BOSSUET 



Meaux and Germigny 29 

this Bossuet be better evoked than in the garden 
of the bishop's house at Meaux and in the park 
of Germigny. "In Germiniaco nostro," we read at 
the end of the Latin letters of ''M. de Meaux." 

I recalled, besides, with what surprise I had 
read the Memoires of Abbe Le Dieu, those notes, 
sometimes puerile, but so touching in their familiar 
simplicity, which reveal to us a Bossuet very 
different from that of Bausset. This cardinal, 
although he composed his book from the manu- 
scripts of Abb6 Le Dieu, could not resign himself 
to the simplicity of the faithful secretary. He has 
doubtless collected everything; he has said every- 
thing; but he has thought it his duty to ascribe 
to his model a continuous majesty and an inex- 
haustible pride. He has drawn the Bossuet of 
Rigaud's portrait. 

Shall we cite an example of the way in which 
Cardinal de Bausset transposes the descriptions 
of Abbe Le Dieu? Bossuet invited his priests to 
say the mass quickly: "It is necessary to go roundly, 
for fear of tiring the people." This is the phrase 
reported by Abbe Le Dieu. And this is how Cardi- 
nal de Bausset translates the expression to make 
it more suitable to the gravity of the author of 
the Oraisons funebres: "li is necessary to perform 
all the ceremonies with dignity," said Bossuet, 
''but with suitable speed. It is not necessary to 



80 The Spell of the Heart of Prance 

tire the people." A simple shading; but a char- 
acteristic trait is effaced. 



I commenced my pilgrimage by a visit to the 
cathedral of Meaux. 

''He had taken possession of the bishopric of 
Meaux on Simday, February 8, 1682, and, on Ash 
Wednesday in the following week, preaching in 
his cathedral to signaUze the beginning of Lent, 
he declared that he would devote himself entirely 
to his flock and would consecrate all his talents 
to their instruction. He promised to preach on 
every occasion when he should pontificate; and 
that no business, however pressing, should ever 
prevent him from coming to celebrate the high 
feasts with his people and to preach the word of 
God to them. He never failed in this, not even 
to exercise his ojffice of Grand Almoner. He took 
leave of the princesses to whom he had been 
attached with much respect, and left to others 
the charge of administering Holy Communion 
to them on the high feasts." {Memoires of Abbe 
Le Dieu, Volume I, page 182.) 

The pulpit from which Bossuet preached so 
many sermons no longer exists. Its panels have 
been found and reassembled to form a new pulpit. 

Otherwise, in this beautiful Gothic cathedral 
there is nothing to arouse the ^notions or to 



Meaux and Germigny SI 

speak to the imagination. Externally and inter- 
nally, all has been '^ freshly restored." The soul 
of the past has departed from it. 

There is soon to be placed under the roof of the 
church a commemorative monument which was 
recently exhibited in the Grand Palace, in the 
midst of an amusing crowd of statues. I was 
told that the authorities have not yet selected 
the place which this monument will occupy in 
the cathedral. How admirable! The monument 
has been conceived and executed for an unde- 
termined position! This formidable pile of sculp- 
ture has been treated like a simple mantelpiece 
ornament. . . . But let us pass; this does not 
concern in the least the memory of Bossuet. 

S|C 9t^ 7|C «fC !)» S|C •!• 

In the bishopry, the episcopal apartments are 
on the second floor. Bossuet did not live there 
very much. He voluntarily gave up the house 
to his nephews and his niece, Madame Bossuet. 
His family had imdertaken the management of 
the household; he was a spendthrift and gave httle 
attention to the cares of daily life, devoting all 
his time to his formidable labors. ''I would lose 
more than half of my mental ability," he wrote 
to Marshal de Belief onds, "if I restricted mysell 
in my household expenses." 

Madame Bossuet knew bow to take advantage 



32 The Spell of the Heart of France 

of this weakness of her uncle, inability to take 
care of his income. She had become mistress of 
the episcopal mansion; she led a worldly life there; 
she entertained; she gave suppers and concerts. 

During Lent of 1704, Bossuet lay at death's 
door. The terrible agonies of illness had caused 
him to lose sleep. See what happened just out- 
side of the room where he lay in agony: ''This 
evening Madame Bossuet gave an entertainment 
to the Bishop of Troyes, Madame de La Briffe, 
the dowager, Madame Amelot, President Larcher, 
and other male and female company, to the num- 
ber of eight. There was a magnificent repast for 
those who were fasting and those who were not, 
with all the noise which attends such assemblies, 
and yet this went on in the very antechamber of 
M. de Meaux and in his hearing, when he longed 
for sleep with the greatest inquietude." {Memoir es 
of Abb6 le Dieu, Volume III, page 74.) 

It is easy to understand that Bossuet did not 
find in such surroundings the peace and quiet 
necessary for his immense labors. He had to 
find a retreat where he could escape the sounds 
of feasting and conversation which filled the 
episcopal house. 

Let us cross the garden which was once laid 
out by Le Notre. Beyond the flower beds, over- 
looking the ancient ramparts of the town of 



Meaux and G-ermigny SS 



Meaux, an avenue of clipped yews offers a sure 
and austere asylum for meditation. This was, it 
is said, the bishop's promenade. At the very end, 
upon the platform of a former bastion, a little 
pavilion served as his study. Its old wainscot- 
ings have disappeared, but the original division 
of the pavihon into two rooms has remained; one 
contained his bed, the other his worktable. 

Here Bossuet shut himself up every evening. 
In the middle of the night, after sleeping four or 
five hours, he waked up of his own accord, for he 
was master of his hours of sleep. He found his 
desk in readiness, his armchair in position, his 
books piled upon chairs, his portfolio of papers, 
his pens, his writing pad and his lighted lamp; 
and he commenced to think and to write. On 
winter nights he buried himself to his waist in a 
bearskin bag. After a vigil of three hours, he 
said his matins and returned to slumber. 

While, in the silence of the night, M. de Meaux 
wrote against heretics and prayed for them, 
armed himself for the eternal combat and worked 
for the welfare of the souls which were in his 
charge, the salons of the episcopal house were 
made gay by lights and violins. 

Bossuet remained faithfully in his diocese during 
the twenty-two years that he was bishop of Meaux. 



34 The Spell of the Heart of France 

But he always preferred to live in his country house 
at Germigny rather than in his episcopal palace. 

Two leagues across a pleasant and shghtly 
undulating country, the road crosses the Marne 
by a stone bridge. In the seventeenth century 
there was only a ferry. On the left bank appears 
the httle village of Germigny with its few houses 
dotted pleasantly along the hillside. The land- 
scape has the grace and freshness which is charac- 
teristic of the whole valley of the Marne: a horizon 
of tiny hills, humble and smiling, a fertile and 
regularly cultivated plain, an old mill lost among 
the willows, a line of great poplars, a sluggish, 
grassy rivulet, resigned to continual detours, and 
finally, spread over all these things, a somewhat 
humid hght which imparts to them a delicate 
charm — a lovable spectacle of which the eye 
cannot tire, since its subtle seductiveness lies 
wholly in the changes of the light and the flight 
of the clouds. 

From the tweKth century, the pleasure house 
of the Bishops of Meaux was at Germigny, on 
the banks of the Marne. Kings often stopped 
there when they came to hunt in the neighboring 
forests. Bossuet's predecessor, M. de Ligny, 
spent fifty thousand crowns in transforming the 
old house into a veritable chateau. The domain 
was sold at the time of the Revolution. But 



Meaux and Germigny 35 

Mgr. de Briey has bought back a part of it and 
has thus renewed the tradition of the former 
bishops of Meaux. 

What remains of the old chateau? The park 
has been cut up. Of the gardens a lawn and a 
few alleys remain. The buildings have been 
ruined. A dovecote and an old turret are still 
standing, and the wreckers have respected the 
long terrace whose foot was formerly bathed by 
the Marne; it is today separated from the river 
by a highway. This is shaded by great trees, a 
charming place which seems to have been made 
especially for the meditative promenade of an 
orator or the relaxation of a theologian. 

Bossuet loved Germigny. In his letters he 
often celebrated the charm of "his sohtude." 
He even sung it in Latin in a hymn which he 
composed in honor of Saint Barthelemy, the 
patron of his parish. Every year he came to his 
country house to reaUze that dream of his youth 
which he had ingenuously expressed in a sermon: 
''What an agreeable diversion to contemplate 
how the works of nature advance to perfection 
by insensible increase! How much pleasure we 
can have in observing the success of the trees 
which we have grafted in a garden, the growth of 
the wheat, the flow of a river!" For he was 
sensitive to the spectacles of nature. 



36 The Spell of the Heart of France 

''Do you desire to see a sight worthy of your 
eyes? Chant with David: 'When I consider thy 
heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and 
the stars, which thou hast ordained.' Listen to 
the word of Jesus Christ who said to you: 'Con- 
sider the lily of the field and the flowers which 
pass in a day. Verily, verily, I say unto you, 
that Solomon in all his glory and with that beauti- 
ful diadem with which his mother crowned his 
head, was not arrayed like one of these.' See 
these rich carpets with which the earth covers 
itself in the spring. How petty is everything in 
comparison with these great works of God! There 
we see sunplicity joined with grandeur, abundance, 
profusion, inexhaustible riches, which were created 
by a word and which a word sustains. . . ." 

And, in this same Traite de la concupiscence 
from which I have just extracted these lines, 
written with a grace almost worthy of Saint 
Francis, do you recall the admirable picture of a 
sunrise: "The sun advanced, and his approach was 
made known by a celestial whiteness which spread 
on all sides; the stars had disappeared and the 
moon had arisen as a crescent, of a sUver hue so 
beautiful and so hvely that the eyes were charmed 
by it. . . . In proportion as he approached, I 
saw her disappear; the feeble crescent diminished 
little by little; and when the sun was entirely 



Meaux and Grermigny 37 

visible, her pale and feeble light, fading away, 
lost itself in that of the great luminary in which 
it seemed to be absorbed. . . ." Is not this the 
work of an attentive and passionate observer? 

The numerous letters and decrees dated at 
Germigny show how much this retreat pleased 
Bossuet. His books followed him there. Labor 
seemed easier to him in this salubrious air and at 
this delicious spot. There he received, in noble and 
courteous fashion, the illustrious personages who 
came to visit him. The Great Conde, the Due de 
Bourbon, the Prince de Conti, the Comte de 
Toulouse, the Due de Maine, Cardinal de Noailles, 
Marshal de Villars, Madame de Montespan, and 
her sister, the Abbess of Fontevrault, were the 
guests of Bossuet at Germigny. In 1690, the 
Dauphin, on his way to the army in Germany, 
had wished to make his first halt at Germigny, 
at the home of his ancient tutor. 

The most celebrated preachers were invited by 
the Archbishop of Meaux to preach at his cathe- 
dral, and were afterward entertained in his coun- 
try house. It was in this way that the Abb4 
de Fenelon often came to Germigny. At this 
period the bishop and the abbe esteemed and loved 
each other. "When you come," the Abbe de 
Fenelon wrote from Versailles to the Bishop of 
Meaux, "you will teU us of the marvels of spring 



38 The Spell of the Heart of France 

at Germigny. Ours commences to be beautiful: 
if you do not wish to believe it, Monsignor, come 
to see it." (April 25, 1692.) And on another 
occasion, Fenelon sent to Bossuet verses upon his 
countryside which are, alas! — ^verses by Fene- 
lon! Nine years later the springtimes of Ger- 
migny were forgotten. The Maximes des Saints 
had been condemned. T^Umaque had been pub- 
lished; Td&maque which Bossuet read at this very 
Germigny, under the trees which had witnessed the 
former friendship now broken, T^Umaque which 
he declared '' unworthy not only of a bishop, but 
of a priest and of a Christian." And one day, 
he said to Abb6 Le Dieu that Fenelon ''had been 
a perfect hypocrite all his life. . . ." 

Among the visitors at Germigny, we must not 
forget Malebranche, whose name was given to 
one of the avenues of the garden; Rigaud, who 
commenced in this country house the portrait of 
Bossuet which today may be found in the Louvre; 
Santeul, ''the gray-haired child," who made Latin 
verses to describe and celebrate the chateau and 
the park of Germigny. How many verses Ger- 
migny has inspired! 

This beautifiil terrace which overlooks the 
Marne and where so many illustrious shades 
surround that of "M. de Meaux," is the very 




FENELON AND THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY 



Meaux and Germigny 39 

place to evoke the ''sweet and simple" Bossuet! 
When we see that he has so many friends and 
know this taste for retreat and comitry Hfe, the 
man loses at once a little of that solemnity and 
that inflexible arrogance which have come down 
in legend as characteristic of his personahty. 

We also seem to sustain a paradox, even after 
M. Brunetiere, even after M. Rebelliau, in speak- 
ing today of the sweetness and the humanity of 
Bossuet. The entire eighteenth century labored to 
blacken and calumniate the victorious adversary 
of "sweet F^nelon." It is not in the course of a 
promenade upon the banks of the Marne that I 
pretend to study the quarrel of quietism. Never- 
theless, however httle we may wish to recall the 
vicissitudes of the dispute, we must admit that 
the excess of shiftiness of the crafty Perigordian 
sufficiently justified the excess of hardness of the 
impetuous Burgundian. But, in addition, we are 
not deahng here with Bossuet as a polemist. 
The profundity as well as the ingenuousness of 
his faith would excuse the vehemence of his argu- 
ments, if we could permit ourselves to be scandal- 
ized by so courteous a vehemence, we who, unbe- 
lieving or Christian, cannot discuss the most 
insignificant problems of pohtics without resorting 
to extremes of insult. Bossuet had neither hatred 
nor rancor. When he recovered from the emo- 



40 The Spell of the Heart of France 



tion of the combat, he resumed his natural mood, 
which was all charity and sweetness. 

He was nearer to the gospel than Fenelon ever 
was with ■ his artistic vanity. He had in him 
something simple and awkward which brought 
him nearer to the people than to the great ones 
among whom he had hved. At court, he made 
more than one false move. In his diocese, he was 
loved for his goodness. 

By regarding Bossuet as a persecutor, Jurieu 
and the philosophers in his train have obliged the 
historians to examine closely what the conduct of 
the Bishop of Meaux had been in regard to the 
Protestants of his diocese. Now it has appeared 
that, of all the prelates of France who were 
charged with assuring the execution of the Revo- 
cation of the Edict of Nantes, not one showed 
more humanity. Bossuet condenmed violence 
and constraint, and there was only a single mili- 
tary execution in the diocese of Meaux. It would 
be childish to reproach a Catholic bishop of the 
seventeenth century for not having criticized the 
Revocation, of the Edict, especially since this 
bishop, the author of Politique tir^e de lEcriture 
sainte, should have been, more than any other, 
impressed by the perils which the republican 
spirit of the French Protestants threatened to the 
monarchy. He preached to the Protestants as 



Meaux and Germigny 41 

eloquently as he could, turned persecution aside 
from them, and gave alms to them. He received 
at Germigny a great number of ministers who 
had come to dispute with him; and it was in the 
little chapel of his chateau that Joseph Saurin 
and Jacques Benigne Winslow abjured Protes- 
tantism beneath his hands. 

All of this, I know, you can read in the biogra- 
phies of Bossuet and, if you have not already done 
it, do not fail to read it in M. Rebelliau's book. 
But things have mysterious suggestiveness, and 
when we have seen the beautiful garden of the 
bishop's house at Meaux and the charming coun- 
try about Germigny, we are more disposed to 
believe that the Bossuet of the modern historians 
is the true Bossuet. I have not verified their 
researches; but I have read Le Dieu and I have 
walked upon the terrace along the Marne; that 
is sufficient. 

And I would be ungrateful if I failed to add that 
I had the most amiable and the best informed of 
guides in my promenade: the Abbe Forme, priest 
of Germigny, deserving of the parish of Bossuet, 
in all simplicity. 



IV 
SAINTE RADEGONDE 

I HAD heard that, deep in the forest of Mont- 
morency, near the hermitage of Saint® 
Radegonde, there might be found a Uttle ceme- 
tery lost in the midst of the woods. I wondered 
who had chosen this romantic bm'ial place. One 
of my friends, to whom I had imparted my 
curiosity, sent me a book by M. Auguste Rey, 
entitled Le Naturaliste Bosc, and assured me that 
I would there find enhghtenment on the mystery 
which intrigued me. I read it, and the story 
told by M. Auguste Rey increased my desire to 
become acquainted with the cemetery of Sainte 
Radegonde. (Note 2.) 

So, on an October afternoon, I wandered in the 
forest seeking tombs. The search was long and 
charming. As the forest of Montmorency is not 
provided with guideposts, it is impossible not 
to get lost in it. But the magnificence of the 
weather, the miraculous splendor of the golden 
and coppery foUage, the lightness of the luminous 
mists which float over the reddened forest, the 

42 



Sainte Eadegonde 43 

perfume of the softened earth and of the moist 
leaves, make one quickly forget the humiliation 
of having lost his way. 

Following one path after another, I ended by 
stumbhng upon Sainte Radegonde. The place 
is well known to all walkers. Of the ancient priory, 
which was founded here in the thirteenth century 
by the monks of the Abbey of Saint Victor, there 
is left no more than a tumbledown building which 
serves today as a ranger's house. It is surrounded 
by a wall, so that it is no longer possible to 
approach the well which formerly attracted 
numerous pilgrims to Sainte Radegonde, for 
this saint cured, it is said, the itch and sterihty. 

Before the hermitage of Sainte Radegonde 
(the word hermitage was made fashionable in 
this country by Jean Jacques Rousseau) there 
opens a vast glade, whose slope descends to the 
brooklet called Ru du Nid-de-l'Aigle, which flows 
in the midst of a scrub of blackberries and haw- 
thorns. At the end of the meadow, haK hidden 
by copses, there rises a httle bluff which elbows 
the stream aside. Here is the cemetery. A few 
very simple graves surround a little boulder on 
which is carved: ''Bosc, Member of the Institute." 
Four great cedars overlook them with their superb 
shafts. 

The site possesses an inexpressible beauty, at 



44 The Spell of the Heart of France 

the hour when the forest loses the splendor with 
which it was but recently decked by the sun's 
rays, while a cold breeze shakes the hah-naked 
branches, announcing the approaching frosts and 
sorrows of winter. 

The scene is set. Now Usten to the story, which 
I borrow almost entirely from the interesting study 
of M. Auguste Rey. 

Louis Augustin Guillaume Bosc, whose mortal 
remains repose in the cemetery of Sainte Rade- 
gonde, was born at Paris January 29, 1759. His 
family, originally from the Cevennes, belonged to 
the reformed religion. His father was one of the 
physicians of the king. 

At Dijon, where he had been sent to coUege, he 
followed the courses of the naturahst Durande, 
became enthusiastic over the Linnsean system, 
and discovered his vocation. When, after return- 
ing to Paris, he was obliged by reverses of fortune 
to accept a very modest position in the post office, 
he continued the studies of his choice and took 
the public courses given by the professors and 
demonstrators of the King's Garden. 

In 1780, it was proper to have a republican soul 
and a taste for botany. It was good form to 
attend the lectures of M. de Jussieu and to read 
Plutarch. Rousseau had made the love of flowers 




LOUIS AUGUSTIN GUILLAUME BOSC 



Sainte Radegonde 45 

fashionable, for he had said: "While I collect 
plants I am not unfortunate." Madame de Genhs 
composed a Moral Herbal. Amatem-s added a 
museum of natural history to their collection of 
paintings. One might then meet in the alleys of 
the King's Garden a great number of personages 
who were later to take part in the revolutionary 
assembhes. Bosc needed to make no effort to 
foUow the fashion. Being a Huguenot, he was 
repubUcan from birth. As to botany, he cherished 
it with a deep and ingenuous passion, and not as 
a pastime. 

It was in the Botanic Garden, either at Jussieu's 
lectures or in Andre Thouin's home, that he 
sealed the great friendships of his life. He was, 
in fact, among the frequenters of the hospitable 
apartment where lived the four brothers Thouin, 
with their sisters, their wives and their daughters; 
this family of scientist gardeners received their 
friends in winter in the kitchen and in summer 
before the greenhouses. Celebrated men came to 
converse with and learn from these worthy men, 
who were the true masters of the King's Garden; 
and the "venerable" Malesherbes, seated upon a 
trough, often conversed with Madam Guillebert, 
the sister of Andre Thouin, for whom he had a 
particular esteem. (Note 3.) 

Bosc at that time entered into friendship with 



46 The Spell of the Heart of France 

three future members of the Convention, from 
whom he had acquired the taste of studying plants: 
Creuz6-Latouche, Garan de Coulon and Bancal 
des Issarts. The first two died Senators of the 
Empire. As to Bancal, we will soon run across 
him again. 

It was in the same surroundings that he met 
Roland, an inspector of manufactures, and his 
young wife, then in aU the flower of her robust 
beauty. The husband was forty-eight; the wife 
was twenty-six; Bosc was twenty; naturally he 
fell in love. Madame E-oland gave him to under- 
stand that he had nothing to hope for from her; 
but she mockingly added that in eighteen years 
it would be allowable for him to make a like dec- 
laration to her daughter Eudora. Bosc resigned 
himself to the situation and consented to the 
friendship which was offered him; but he com- 
mitted the folly, later, of taking seriously the 
raillery with which he had been dismissed. 

For ten years Bosc continued a correspondence 
with Madame Roland which was full of confidence 
and freedom. These letters no longer exist, and 
it is a pity; for this republican botanist seems to 
have possessed sensitiveness, tenderness and judg- 
ment. We do possess, however, most of the letters 
which were written to him by Madame Roland. 

Without these letters and various others of the 




MADAME ROLAND 



Sainte Radegonde 47 

same period, we would never have had any other 
means of knowing Madame Roland than the 
image drawn by herself in her Memoirs, her 
intolerable Memoirs. We would always have seen 
her behind the tragic mask, heroic, unapproach- 
able and full of vanity, and we would have 
remained almost unconscious of the frightful 
tragedy of her death if she had not left us these 
intimate and familiar effusions, in which are 
revealed the heart and the mind of a woman who 
was truly feminine. We are very little moved by 
the celebrated letter which she wrote one day to 
Bancal, Bosc's friend, to spurn his love, although 
she confessed to "tumultuous sentiments" which 
agitated her, and to tears which obscured her 
vision. I know that Michelet cries: "The cuirass 
of the warrior opens, and it is a woman that we 
see, the wounded bosom of Clorinda." But we 
must doubt, after all, the severity of the wound 
which leaves Clorinda cool enough to call to 
witness "the absolute irreproachability" of her 
life. There is something theatrical in such half- 
avowals. On the contrary, her letters to Bosc 
are simple in diction and ofttimes charming. 
They are spontaneous: "Seated in the ingle 
nook, but at eleven o'clock in the morning, 
after a peaceful night and the different cares 
of the day's work, my friend (that is, Roland) 



48 The Spell of the Heart of France 

at his desk, my little girl knitting, and myself 
talking to one, watching over the work of the 
other, savoring the happiness of existing warmly 
in the bosom of my dear little family, writing to 
a friend, while the snow falls upon so many poor 
devils loaded down with misery and grief, I 
grieve over their fate; I tm-n back with pleasure to 
my own. . . ." And elsewhere: ''Now, know that 
Eudora reads well; begins to know no other play- 
thing than the needle; amuses herself by drawing 
geometrical figures; does not know what shackles 
clothes of any kind may be; has no idea of the 
price one has to pay for rags for adornment ; believes 
herself beautiful when she is told that she is a 
good girl and that she has a perfectly white dress, 
remarkable for its cleanness; that she finds the 
greatest prize in life to be a bonbon given with a 
kiss; that her naughty spells become rarer and 
shorter; that she walks through the darkness as in 
the daylight, fears nothing and has no idea that it 
is worth while to tell a lie about anything; add 
that she is five years and six weeks old; that I am 
not aware that she has false ideas on any subject, 
that is important at least; and agree that, if her 
stiffness has fatigued me, if her fancies have 
worried me, if her carelessness has made it more 
difficult for us to influence her, we have not 
entirely lost our pains. . . ." And it would be 



Sainte Radegonde 49 

possible to quote twenty other passages written 
with the same grace and the same simphcity. . . . 
As for the young friend to whom were addressed 
these nice letters, here is his portrait: "As for you, 
whom I see even at this distance talking quickly, 
going like Ughtning, with an air sometimes sensi- 
ble and sometimes heedless, but never imposing 
when you try to be grave, because then you make 
grimaces derived from Lavater, and because 
activity alone suits your face; you whom we love 
well and who merit it from us, tell us if the present 
is supportable to you and the future gracious." 

Let us return to Sainte-Radegonde. While 
botanizing through the woods which surround 
Paris, Bosc had discovered this retreat. The little 
house, last relic of a priory long since abandoned, 
was inhabited by an old peasant woman who 
gladly offered hospitality to strollers from Paris, 
when the Revolution broke out. 

Bosc, by his temperament, his tastes and his 
friendships, was led to the new ideas. He was not 
satisfied with presiding over the Society of Natural 
History; he likewise joined the Society of Friends 
of the Constitution and, later, he became a mem- 
ber of the Jacobin Club. On September 25, 1791, 
we find him taking part in a festival given at 
Montmorency to celebrate the inauguration of a 



50 The Spell of the Heart of France 

bust of Rousseau : before the dances and illumina- 
tions, he made a speech and offered periwinkles 
to the spirit of the philosopher. 

Meanwhile, the hermitage of Sainte Radegonde, 
confiscated as ecclesiastical property, was about 
to be offered for sale, and Bosc was desolated at 
the thought that a new owner would perhaps 
forbid him access to the wood where he was 
accustomed to dream and work. He was poor and 
could not dream of buying the httle property, 
valued at more than four thousand livres by the 
experts of the district of Gonesse. So he per- 
suaded his friend Bancal to acquire Sainte, Rade- 
gonde at the public auction, February 14, 1792. 
We do not know if he was a partner in the trans- 
action. What seems certain is that Bancal never 
came to dwell in his hermitage. 

A few days later Roland became Minister of the 
Interior and he named Bosc Administrator of 
Posts; it was a question of ''disaristocratizing" 
this service. Bosc used his best talents toward 
it. . . . But, at the end of a year, the Gironde was 
overthrown, the Girondins were under warrants 
of arrest, and Bosc took refuge at Sainte Rade- 
gonde. 

He did not arrive there alone. Roland accom- 
panied him; tracked by the revolutionists of the 
Conmiune, separated from his wife, who had been 




JEAN MARIE ROLAND 



Sainte Radegonde 51 

imprisoned in the Abbaye, he concealed himself 
for fifteen days with his friend before seeking a 
safer asylum at Rouen, in the home of the 
Demoiselles Malortie. 

After having assured the escape of Roland, 
Bosc gets hold of his daughter Eudora, who was 
then twelve years old, and confides her to the wife 
of his friend Creuz^-Latouche ; then he succeeds 
in entering the prison, where he reassures Madame 
Roland as to the fate of her child. 

After being temporarily released, this lady 
is again arrested and shut up at Sainte P^lagie. 
Bosc continues to come and see her at the peril 
of his Hfe. He brings her flowers, for which he 
goes to the Botanical Garden; but, one day, he 
understands the danger of thus going to visit 
the Thouins, and then it is the flowers of Sainte 
Radegonde that he brings to the prisoner in a 
basket. It is to him that Madame Roland confides 
Les Notices Historiques — these are her Memoirs, — 
written in her prison. Finally, when her sentence 
has become inevitable, she begs from him poison, 
by which she may escape the insults of the judges 
and the populace: "Behold my firmness, weigh 
the reasons, calculate coldly, and appreciate how 
little is the worth of the canaille, greedy for 
spectacles." Bosc decides that for her own glory 
and for the sake of the Republic his friend must 



52 The Spell of the Heart of France 

accept all: the outrages of the tribunal, the 
clamors of the crowd and the horror of the last 
agony. She submits. A few days later Bosc returns 
to Paris and hears of her execution. 

Sainte Radegonde sheltered others who were 
proscribed. 

One day when Bosc visited Creuz6-Latouche, he 
met there Lareveilliere-Lepeaux. The latter, 
sought for at the same time as his two inseparable 
friends, Urbain Pilastre and Jean Baptiste Leclerc, 
had just learned of the flight of Pilastre and the 
arrest of Leclerc. He wished to return to his home, 
be arrested, and partake the fate of his friend. 
Creuze dissuaded him from this act of despair. . . • 

Bosc knew Lareveilliere from having formerly 
seen him at the home of Andre Thouin, for the 
future high priest of the Theophilanthropists had 
become quite expert in botany. He offered to 
share his hiding place with him. Lareveilhere 
accepted. Both succeeded in leaving Paris with- 
out being noticed, and reached Sainte Radegonde. 

For three weeks Lareveilliere remained hidden 
in the forest of Emile. (At this time Montmorency 
was called Emile, in honor of Rousseau.) Neither 
he nor Bosc had a red cent. They had to live on 
bread, roots and snails. Besides, their hiding 
place was not safe; there was nothing unusual in 



Sainte Radegonde 53 

the presence of Bosc in this sohtude, but Lare- 
veilliere might any day excite the curiosity of the 
patriots of Emile. The ughness of his countenance 
and the deformity of his figure caused him to be 
noticed by every passer-by. Robespierre was then 
living in the hermitage of Jean Jacques; it has 
even been related that he met the fugitive face 
to face one day; at all events such an encounter 
was to be dreaded. The administrators of Seine- 
et-Oise sometimes took a fancy to hunt in the 
neighborhood of Sainte Radegonde. . . . The 
peril increased from day to day. A faithful friend, 
Pincepre de Buire, invited Lareveill^re to take 
refuge at his home near Peronne. He left Sainte 
Radegonde. 

^'The good Mile. Letourneur," he has related, 
"gave me two or three handkerchiefs; Rozier, 
today a counselor at the royal court of Mont- 
pellier, then judge of the district of Montmorency, 
whose acquaintance we had made at Mile. 
Letourneur's, put one of his shirts in my pocket. 
Poor Bosc gave me the widow's mite — he put a 
stick of white crab in my hand and guided me 
through the forest to the highway. To use the 
English expression, on leaving him '1 tore myself 
from him' with extreme grief." (Note 4.) 

Lareveilliere arrived without difficulty at the 
village of Buire. 



54 The Spell of the Heart of France 

On the same day that he left Sainte Radegonde, 
another deputy of the Convention, Masuyer, came 
to take his place; he was accused because he had 
assisted at the escape of Petion; but his greatest 
crime was that he had, in full Assembly, said to 
Pache, who insisted on proscriptions: "Haven't 
you got a little place for me on your list? There 
would be a hundred crowns in it for you !' ' Masuyer, 
disregarding Bosc's advice, wished to enter Paris. 
He was arrested near the Neuilly Bridge. Bosc, 
who had insisted on accompanying him, had just 
time to plunge into the Bois de Boulogne, escaped, 
and returned to his hermitage, where he awaited 
the end of the Terror. 

4e 4: * ^ * 4: * 

When he returned to Paris, in the autumn of 
1794, Bosc devoted his entire time to the labors 
imposed upon him by the last will of Madame 
Roland. He withdrew the manuscript of her 
Memoirs from the hiding place where he had left 
it, on top of the beam over the stable door of 
Sainte Radegonde, and published the first part 
of it in April, 1795. At the same time he 
endeavored to collect the remnants of the patri- 
mony of Eudora, whose guardianship he had 
accepted. 

Here begins the most melancholy episode of 
the life of this worthy man. He became smitten 



Sainte Radegonde 55 

with his pupil. He allowed himself to be bUnded 
by some marks of gratitude. "She is tenderly- 
attached to me," he wrote to one of his friends, 
''and shows the happiest disposition; so I can no 
longer fail to meet her wishes and take her for 
my wife, despite the disproportion of our ages." 
Nevertheless, he still had scruples, and sent 
Eudora for several months to the Demoiselles 
Malortie, who had given asylum to E-oland when 
a fugitive. It was well for him that he did, for 
his illusion was of short duration. Eudora did not 
love him. . . . 

Without employment, without means, his heart 
broken, he resolved to expatriate himseK. He 
reached Bordeaux on foot, paid calls on the widows 
of his friends of the Gironde, and took passage 
on a ship departing for America. He left France 
in despair, without receiving a single word of 
farewell from Eudora. When he landed at Charles- 
ton, he learned of the marriage of his pupil to the 
son of a certain Champagneux, a friend of Madame 
Roland, to whom he had intrusted the guardian- 
ship of the young girl. 

Lareveilhere, who had become a Director, had 
him appointed vice-consul at Wilmington, and 
later consul at New York. But there were great 
difficulties between the United States and France; 
he could not obtain his exequatur. He tried to 



56 The Spell of the Heart of France 

console himself by devotion to botany. But the 
wound which he had received still bled. ^'I do 
not know," he wrote to Madame Louvet, "when 
the wound of my heart will be sufficiently healed 
to allow me to revisit without too much bitter- 
ness the places and the individuals still dear to 
me, whose presence will bring back to me cruel 
memories. Although I am much more calm than 
when I left, although I am actually easily dis- 
tracted by my scientific labors and even by 
manual occupations, I do not feel that I have 
courage to return to Paris. I still need to see 
persons to whom I am indifferent, in order to 
accustom myself to facing certaui persons whom 
I have loved and whom I cannot forget, whatever 
injustice they may have done to me or to the 
Repubhc, without counting my Eudora. . . ." 
And his memory takes him back to the dear 
retreat of Sainte Radegonde; he writes to Bancal: 
"Well! Then you no longer go to visit Sainte 
Radegonde? Do you then take no more interest in 
it? I conclude from that that you will undergo no 
further expense on account of it and that you will 
soon get rid of it. Nevertheless I had the project 
of planting there many trees from this country, 
since it is the soil most similar to that of South 
Carolina that I know in the neighborhood of 
Paris. . . ." 



Sainte Radegonde 57 

Bosc did see Sainte Radegonde again. At the 
end of two years he returned to France and married 
one of his cousins. The Revolution was over and 
Eudora was forgotten. 

From that time on, he gave himself up entirely 
to his work as a naturalist. He became Inspector 
of the nurseries of Versailles and also of those 
which were maintained by the Ministry of the 
Interior. In 1806 he was elected a member of the 
Institute. In 1825 he succeeded his friend Andre 
Thouin as Professor of Horticulture at the 
Botanical Garden, and after a long and cruel 
illness, which prevented him from lecturing, he 
died in 1828. 

Sb *I( 4c ^ SilC !$• «)C 

In 1801, when the first daughter born of his 
marriage had died in infancy, he had begged 
Bancal to transfer to him two perches of land in 
his domain of Sainte. Radegonde, in order that he 
might biu-y his child there. Such was the origin 
of the little cemetery where Bosc reposes in the 
midst of his children and his grandchildren. 

I have not regretted making a pilgrimage and 
evoking, in the autumnal forest, the phantoms of 
these Revolutionists and these botanists. 

How touching a figure is that of this Bosc, 
whose name recalls — it is Lareveilliere-Lepeaux 
who speaks— "the most generous friendship, 



58 The Spell of the Heart of France 

the most heroic courage, the purest patriotism, 
the most active humanity, the most austere 
probity, the most determined boldness, and at 
the same time the most extended knowledge in 
natural science and different branches of adminis- 
tration as well as in pohtical, domestic and rural 
economy. . ." and also, let us add, the eternal 
blindness of the amorous Arnolphe! 



SENLIS 

THE spire of the ancient cathedral of Senlis 
overlooks an immense horizon. This belfry- 
is the hghtest, the most elegant, the most 
harmonious that Gothic art has given us. It 
rises with a flight so magnificent and so perfectly- 
rhythmical that at the first glance one might 
think it a growth of nature; it seems to live with 
the same life as the heavens, the clouds and the 
birds. This masterly- grace, this warm beauty, 
are, however, the work of time and of men. An 
architect endowed with genius thought out this 
miraculous plan, proportioned with this infallible 
precision the elevation of the different landings, 
distributed the openings and the surfaces, invented 
the pointed turrets and the frail colunons which 
flank the edifice, taper off its structure, precipitate 
its flight and make it impossible to perceive the 
point at which the square tower is transformed 
into an octagonal spire, so that the highest pyra- 
mid seems to burst forth from a long corolla. 
Then the centuries have painted the stones with 

59 



60 The Spell of the Heart of France 

the pale gold of lichens, and have completed the 
masterpiece. 

The whole of Senlis seems to have been built 
for the glory of its spire. Streets, gardens, squares, 
monuments, houses, all seem to be arranged by a 
mysterious artist, who persists in incessantly 
bringing back our glance to the dominating spire, 
the better to reveal to us all its graces and all its 
magnificence, at all times and under all lights. 

We wander at random about the httle episcopal 
city: it is charming, tortuous and taciturn, with 
its moss-covered pavements, its deserted alleys, 
its flowering orchards, its shadowed promenades, 
its ancient houses. We discover at every step 
houses of earUer days which the barbarism of the 
men of the present time has spared: here turrets, 
spiral staircases, doors surmounted by old escut- 
cheons, long half-grotesque gargoyles, mullioned 
windows, evoke the refined elegance of the fifteenth 
century; yonder, a wall decorated with pilasters 
and medallions, or a noble brick and stone crow- 
stepped fagade, witness the opulence of the citi- 
zenry at the time of the second Renaissance; 
there are admirable remains of hospitals of the 
thirteenth century; heavy Tuscan porches stand 
before beautiful h6tels of the eighteenth: and all 
this rich and varied architecture is an excellent 
commentary on the words of Jean de Jandun, 



Senlis 61 

the historian of Senlis: ''To be at Senhs is to dwell 
in magnificent homes, whose vigorous walls are 
built, not of fragile plaster, but of the hardest and 
most selected stone, placed with an industrious 
skill, and whose cellars, surrounded by solid con- 
structions of stone, so cool the wines during the 
summer season, thanks to the degree of their 
freshness, that the throat and the stomach of 
drinkers thereby experience a supreme delight." 
(Note 5.) 

To the charm of the spectacle is added the 
charm of ancient names: the sinuous streets have 
retained their antique appellations. (How wise 
is Senlis to maintain these strange words, carved 
in the stone, at the corners of its streets, rather 
than to inscribe upon ignoble blue plates the 
names of all the celebrities dear to Larousse!) 
The beautiful houses of former days seem in some 
undiscoverable way to be more living when we 
discover them in the Street of the Red Mail, the 
Street of the Trellis, the Street of the White 
Pigeons, the Street of Tiphaine's Well, the Street 
of the Little Chaalis, the Impasse du Courtillet, 
etc. . . . An amusing sign which represents 
three scholars arguing with an ape would no 
longer have any flavor if we had to seek for it in 
some Place Garibaldi; it is delicious when found 
at Unicorn Crossways. On the old Town Hall, an 



62 The Spell of the Heart of Prance 

inscription continues to indicate the position of 
the rabbit and broom market; and it is very fine 
that the name of Louis Blanc or of Gambetta 
has not been given to the Street of the Cheese 
Makers, were it only out of consideration for that 
excellent Jean de Jandun who, decidedly, well 
knew how to appreciate all the merits of Senlis, 
for he wrote in regard to the cheeses of his native 
town: "The sweetest milk, a butter without admix- 
ture, fat cheeses, served in abundance to mean 
and minor purses, banish that furious activity of 
the brain which fatigues almost without exception 
the majority of admirers of highly spiced meats, 
and thus furnish the well-regulated habitude of 
a tranquil life and a simplicity of the dove." 
Fagades, names and souvenirs are exquisite; 
and one says to one's self in sauntering about 
Senlis that, even without the assistance of the 
treatment recommended by Jean de Jandun, the 
silent and antique grace of the little town would 
be suflScient to inspire in old neurasthenics "the 
regulated habitude of a tranquil life and a sim- 
phcity of the dove. ..." 

The promenade is charming. But neither the 
picturesqueness of the streets, nor the beauty of 
the houses, nor the piquancy of the old names, 
nor even the words of Jean de Jandun are worth 
as much as the picture which here strikes the 



Senlls 68 

glance at every turn: the spire, always the spke 
of Notre Dame. It appears suddenly between 
two gables. It projects above the old brownish 
tile roofs. Above the flower-covered walls of the 
gardens it is framed between clumps of lilac and 
horse-chestnut. It overlooks the houses, it 
dominates the parks. The poor tower of Saint 
Peter, with its disgraceful lantern, sometimes 
accompanies it at a distance, as if to make bar- 
barians better appreciate the grandeur and the 
slenderness of Notre Dame's incomparable spire. 
Senlis has preserved the ruins of its royal 
chateau. It is a place which abounds in mem- 
ories, for a great number of the kings of France, 
from the Carlovingians to Henri IV, came here to 
visit for a season. Even its ruins are not without 
interest. They rest upon the Roman wall, which 
has remained intact at this spot, and we find there 
a fireplace of the thirteenth century, towers, case- 
ments. . . . But how completely indifferent aU 
this archaeology leaves us when we behold the 
spire of the cathedral emerging from the greenery 
of the garden! The great trees conceal aU the 
rest of the church. We see only, mounting into 
the full heaven, the golden pyramid, stOl finer 
and more aspiring in the midst of all these spring 
greeneries. A mysterious harmony exists between 
the youthful boldness, the robust lightness^ of 



64 The Spell of the Heart of France 

the human work, and the triumphant freshness of 
the new vegetation. Besides, the monuments of 
Gothic art are as marvelously suited to intimacy 
with nature as to famiUarity with Ufe. 

This famiharity, which has so often been de- 
stroyed by foohshly clearing away the surround- 
ings of cathedrals, proves its value to us at Senlis 
on the Place du Parvis-Notre-Dame. This is a 
rectangular space, where grass grows between the 
paving stones. The fagade of the church is 
framed by two rows of noble chestnuts. Behind 
a venerable wall rise the turret and the gable of a 
fifteenth-century house. One might suppose it to 
be the deserted and well-kept courtyard of a 
Flemish heguinage. In this ancient frame, in the 
midst of this solitude, the cathedral preserves all 
its youth. Here there is a perfect unison between 
the building and its surroundings. Not only are 
the trees, the walls, the houses, in harmony with 
the architecture, but this architecture itself 
remains alive, because its proportions have not 
been falsified. The dimensions of the square are 
exactly those which are needed in order that our 
eye may be able to discover in their beauty of 
propinquity the portal, the unfinished tower and 
the spire. All this is so perfect that its grace is 
eternal. 



Senlis 65 

This cathedral of Senhs would be an incompar- 
able edifice even if it did not possess its sublime 
spire. 

The western portal is one of the most beautiful 
works of mediaeval sculpture. On the two sides of 
the porch, as on the northern door of Chartres, are 
arranged the kings and the prophets who fore- 
shadowed the Saviour in the Old Testament. 
Vandals have mutilated these statues in olden 
times. In the nineteenth century other savages 
have restored them and have put in the place of 
the broken heads masterpieces of bad taste and 
silliness. Happily these malefactors have spared 
the rest of the sculptures; they have touched 
neither the ruins of the charming calendar, whose 
popular scenes unfold themselves above the kings 
and the prophets, nor the marvelous statuettes, 
still almost intact, which adorn the voussoirs of 
the portal, nor the bas-rehef s of the tympan where 
angels huddle about the dead Virgin, that some 
may carry to heaven her body and others her 
soul. As to the Coronation of the Virgin, which 
occupies the upper part of the tympan, it also 
has been respected alike by iconoclasts and by 
restorers. Of all the images of the Mother of 
God which the sculpture of the thirteenth cen- 
tury has left us, I know none more moving than 
this Virgin of Senlis. She is a peasant girl, a 



ed The Spell of the Heart of France 

simple country maid, with heavy featm-es, and 
resignation in her face; her unaccustomed hands 
can scarcely hold the scepter and the book; she 
is ready for all dolors and for all beatitudes, 
extenuated by miracles, harassed by maternity, 
still and always ancilla Domini, even in the midst 
of the glories of the coronation and of the splen- 
dors of Paradise. 

The church of the twelfth century, to which 
this doorway belongs, was finished in the thir- 
teenth, burned in the fourteenth, rebuilt in the 
fifteenth, and again ruined by fire at the beginning 
of the sixteenth. It is possible to discover in the 
cathedral of today the traces of these various 
reconstructions. But, however interesting it may 
be to foUow, upon the stones of the monuments, 
the history of their vicissitudes, I will spare you 
this somewhat austere amusement. Continuous 
archaeology is tiresome. 

I stop at the sixteenth century. It was at this 
period that the church took the form and the 
aspect which it has preserved to our time. 

In 1505, the Bishop Charles de Blanchefort, 
together with the chapter, addressed the following 
request to the King: ''May it please the King to 
have pity and compassion on the poor chiu-ch of 
Senlis. . . which, by fortune and inconvenience 
of fire, in the month of June, 1504, was burned, 




PORTAL OF THE CATHEDRAL OF SENLIS 



Senlls 67 

the bells melted, and the belfry which is great, 
magnificent and one of the notable of the king- 
dom, by means of the said fire in such wise dam- 
aged that it is in danger of falling." Louis XII 
showed himself favorable to the request. Nobles, 
citizens and merchants contributed to the work. 
The spire was made firm. The walls of the nave 
were raised, the vaulting was reconstructed, the 
transept was built, and there were constructed 
at the north and south sides those two finely 
chiseled portals which give to Notre Dame de 
Senlis so much elegance and sumptuousness. 
How, without dinnnishing the pure beauty of the 
old cathedral, the architects of the Renaissance 
should have been able to give it this luxurious 
attire, this festal clothing; how, without damage 
to the ancient edifice, they should have been 
able to envelop it with all these laces and jewels 
of stone, slender columns, balustrades, carved 
copings, pierced lanterns, is a miracle of taste 
and ingenuity. The French builders of the first 
half of the sixteenth century often produced such 
prodigies; but nowhere, I believe, has the success 
been as complete as at Senlis. 

In the interior, even though the nave is very 
short and the choir very deep, the same impres- 
sion of unity. Nevertheless, the balustrades in 
Renaissance style, which garnish the upper gal- 



68 The Spell of the Heart of Prance 

leries, shock us for a moment. The discrepancy 
in the styles is more visible inside the edifice. 
Outside the light envelops all and softens the con- 
trasts; the sun creates harmony. 

The chapels are poorly decorated. The archi- 
tects and clergy have there rivaled each other in 
bad taste. They have broken open the apse to 
add to it a chapel of the Virgin, which breaks all 
the lines of the monument inside and out. Two 
statues of the thirteenth century, one representing 
Saint Louis and the other Saint Levain, have been 
ridiculously colored, so that one would take them 
today for products of the Rue Bonaparte. A 
pretty Virgin of the fourteenth century would 
have been better off without the new gilding 
which has been inflicted on it. . . . 

At the end of the church, I read on one of the 
pillars the following inscription: ''Nicolas Jour- 
dain, administrator of this parish, deceased 
January 30, 1799. — ^This church owes to him its 
restoration and its embellishment. The grateful 
parishioners have erected this monument to him. — 
Marie Frangoise Truyart, his spouse, equally bene- 
factress of this church, deceased January 17, 
1811. — Pray for their souls." 

Who was M. Jourdain? What embelUshments 
does the church of Senhs owe to him? I would 
have liked to know. I looked for the sacristan, 



Senlis 69 

that he might tell me, and also that he might allow 

me to enter the sacristy, where one may see the 

Dance of Fools on a capital. But the sacristan 

of Notre Dame de Senlis dwells very far from his 

church, on the banks of the Nonette, in the place 

called the Asses' Backs; he goes home before 

eleven o'clock in the morning to get his lunch, 

and is never seen again at the cathedral, according 

to the bell-ringer, before four o'clock in the 

afternoon. So I returned at four o'clock. The 

sacristan was still eating breakfast at the Asses' 

Backs. ... So I shall never know anything 

about either M. Nicolas Jourdaia nor Marie 

Frangoise Truyart, his wife. 

* * * * * * * 

On the other bank of the Nonette, turn about. 
A little bridge over a httle river; some orchards, 
still pink and white with thek last flowers; a street 
which climbs through the town, whose roofs and 
uneven gables are outlined softly against a sky of 
pale blue; remnants of ramparts starred with 
golden flowers; great clumps of verdure rising 
everywhere among the rosy roofs, and finally the 
great belfry dominating all, the Httle town, the 
little valley, the fields which rise and fall to the 
horizon. Behold, and if you are "one of us," you 
will recognize the most perfect, the most elegant, 
the finest, the best arranged of aU the landscapes 



70 The Spell of the Heart of Prance 

of the world. Here is France, the France of 
Fouquet, the France of Corot. 

And I must also, before leaving Senlis, announce 
that this truly aristocratic town has not a single 
statue in its squares. 



VI 

JUILLY 

THE Oratorist Fathers founded the college 
of Juilly September 2, 1639. They stiU 
directed it when these hnes were written. 
The world knows what fate has since come to the 
masters of this old institution. 

Here we are deep in the soil and the history of 
France. Juilly, an ancient monastery of the 
Canons Regular of Saint Augustine, is seven 
leagues from Paris, four leagues from Meaux, in 
the Parisis, in the heart of the region where 
France discovered that it had a conscience, a 
destiny, a tongue and an art. The earth here is 
so opulent, so fat and so heavy that six oxen 
harnessed to a plow labor over the furrow. The 
rich plateau lifts here and there in slow and 
measured undulations or sinks in laughing and 
umbrageous folds. The brooks are called the 
Biberonne, the Ru du Rossignol (Nightingale 
Brook); the villages, Thieux, Compans, Dam- 
martin, Nantouillet. Joan of Arc prayed in the 
church of Thieux. Saint Genevieve, to slake 

71 



7^ The Spell of the Heart of Prance 

the thirst of one of her companions, called forth 
the limpid spring about which the monastery 
grew. All the virtues and all the legends of France 
render the air more gentle and more salubrious 
here. 

The valley of Juilly has the modest and pene- 
trating grace of the exquisite landscapes of the 
Ile-de-France. At the bottom of the valley 
stretch lawns and a pool with formal banks. On 
one of the slopes, a beautiful park displays its 
grand parallel avenues, which debouch on wide 
horizons, a park made expressly for the promenade 
of a metaphysician, a Cartesian park. On the 
opposite slope, a farm, a dovecote, then the vast 
buildings of the college, massive constructions of 
the seventeenth century, whose austere and naked 
fagades are not without grandeur. 

On the edge of the pool rises a chestnut tree, 
thrice centenarian. Tradition will have that it 
sheltered the reveries of Malebranche. It is per- 
haps in this place that the Oratorist read Des- 
cartes, with such transports " that he was seized 
with palpitations of the heart, which sometimes 
obliged him to interrupt his reading," an extraordi- 
nary emotion which inspired Fontenelle with 
this delicious remark: " The invisible and useless 
truth is not accustomed to find so much sensi- 
tiveness among men, and the most ordinary 




THE POOL AT JUILLY 



\ 



Juilly 73 

objects of their passions would hold themselves 
happy to be the object of as much." 

The chestnut tree of Malebranche has been 
pruned. Under the weight of centuries, its 
branches bent and broke. They have been cut, 
and the venerable trunk now stretches toward the 
sky only the wounded stumps. This spectacle 
in this place makes one think of the destiny of a 
philosophy. The decaying branches of the sys- 
tem have been broken, the soil has been strewn 
with the great branches under which men for- 
merly enjoyed the repose of certainty. But, when 
the pruner has finished his task, we still admire 
the structure of the old tree and the fecundity of 
the soil whence it grew. 

The college, with its long corridors and its vast 
staircases, preserves a monastic appearance, which 
would be severe and harsh if the countryside, the 
grass plots, the park and the pool did not display 
their gayety about the old walls. When M. 
Demolins and his imitators created their new 
schools, they followed the example of England; 
but, in a certain manner, they revived a French 
tradition. Before any one thought of crowding 
children into the university barracks of the nine- 
teenth century, there were in France colleges 
where life was lived in the open air, in the midst 
of a beautiful park, 



74 The Spell of the Heart of Prance 

Within, the house is grave and without luxury. 
The Oratorists were never rich. The house has 
remained almost in the state in which it was in 
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The 
chapel only was rebuilt a few years ago, for the 
ancient convent chapel of the thirteenth century 
had fallen to ruins. The magnificent wainscot- 
ings of oak in the strangers' refectory enframe 
paintings of the time of Louis XV, representing 
skating, fishing and hunting scenes; the staircase 
which leads to the apartments of the Superior is 
ornamented with a beautiful railing of iron and 
brass; these are the only traces of ancient decora- 
tion to be met with in the whole college. 

But the ancient home is rich in memories. 
Before entering, we have already half seen on the 
bank of the pool the meditative shade of Male- 
branche. Other ghosts rise on every side. The 
Oratory of France lives again at Juilly. 

Here, in the chapel, is the image of Cardinal 
de BeruUe. This statue, an admirable work by 
Jacques Sarazin, is the upper portion of a mauso- 
leum which the Oratorist Fathers of Paris had 
erected in their institution to the memory of their 
founder. The cardinal, in full canonicals, kneels 
on a prie-dieu, in the attitude of prayer, with an 
open book before him. His head and the upper 



Juilly 75 

portion of his body turn toward the left in a cm-i- 
ous way, but the face is a prodigy of hfe and 
expression. The coarse featiu-es, strongly accen- 
tuated, breathe good-will and kindness. He has 
the magnificent ugliness of a saint. 

The concordat of Francis I had caused the 
moral ruin of the convents of France; the secular 
clergy, among the troubles of the rehgious wars, 
had fallen into the most miserable condition, 
without piety, without knowledge, and without 
manners, when, at the beginning of the sixteenth 
century, Pierre de BeruUe, Madame Acarie and 
Saint Vincent de Paul undertook the religious 
restoration of France, which the adjuration of 
Henri IV had just definitely restored to Cathol- 
icism. B^rulle fomided the Oratory of France 
on the model of the Oratory of Rome, instituted 
by Saint Phihp N^ri. 

On November 11, 1611, Saint Martin's Day, 
in a house of the Fauboiu-g Saint Jacques, called 
the House of Petit Bourbon (the Val-de-Grace 
was later built on this same spot), BeruUe and 
five other priests assembled to constitute a con- 
gregation. The aim of this was to "increase the 
perfection of the priestly calling." But its rule 
and its spirit had nothing in common with the 
rule and the spirit of the monastic orders. The 
Oratorist does not pronounce special vows, and 



76 The Spell of the Heart of France 

remains under the jurisdiction of his bishop. 

Bossuet, in his funeral oration on Father Bour- 
going, splendidly sununarized the constitution of 
the Oratory: 

"The immense love of Pierre de BeruUe for the 
Church inspired him with the design of forming a 
company to which he desired to give no other 
spirit than the very spirit of the Church nor any 
other rules than its canons, nor any other superiors 
than its bishops, nor any other bonds than its 
charity, nor any other solemn vows than those of 
baptism and of the priesthood. 

"There, a holy Uberty makes a holy engage- 
ment. One obeys without dependence, one 
governs without commands; all authority is in 
gentleness, and respect exists without the aid of 
fear. The charity which banishes fear operates 
this great miracle, and, with no other yoke than 
itself, it knows how, not only to capture, but 
even to annihilate personal will." 

The Jesuits had returned to France seven years 
before Pierre de BeruUe created the Oratory. He 
was not the enemy of the Company of Jesus, since 
he himself had labored to procm-e its return to 
France. His work was none the less opposed to 
that of Saint Ignatius. "In our body," said a 
century later an Oratorist who was faithful to the 
spirit of his congregation, "liberty consists . ♦ , 



Juilly 77 

in wishing and in doing freely what one ought, 
quasi liberi." This quasi Uteri is exactly the 
opposite of the famous perinde ac cadaver. We 
may understand sufficiently why, in the course 
of time, the Jesuits showed Httle sympathy for 
the Oratorists. The work of Pierre de Berulle 
must have appeared to them a perilous compro- 
mise between Cathohc orthodoxy and the detested 
principles of the Reformation: what good is it to 
renew, at every moment of one's life, one's adhe- 
sion to a rule to which it is more simple and more 
sure to enchain one's self once for all? Why 
wish to give one's self at any cost the haughty joy 
of feeling and exercising one's Uberty? And what 
is this annihilation which allows the will to reas- 
sert itseK incessantly, vivacious and active? The 
Jesuits, therefore, were not surprised to see the 
Oratory threatened by the Jansenist contagion. 

We might be tempted to say, employing a 
vocabulary which is too modern, that the spirit 
of the Oratory was, from its inception, a hberal 
spirit. Let us rather say : It was a Cartesian spirit. 
Pierre de Berulle loved and admired Descartes 
and urged him to pubhsh his writings. The 
greatest of disciples of Descartes, Malebranche, 
was an Oratorist. ... A Jesuit would not have 
failed to call our attention also to the fact that 
here is displayed the imprudence of Pierre de 



78 The Spell of the Heart of France 

BeruUe and of his successors; for from methodical 
doubt came all the rationahsm of the eighteenth 
century. . . . 
Let us return to Juilly. 

On the walls of the masters' refectory hangs a 
long series of portraits: they are those of the 
Generals Superior of the Oratory and of some 
illustrious Oratorists. The most beautiful is that 
of Malebranche: this long, meager face witnesses 
the candid and simple soul of the metaphysician, 
who saw ''all in God." Other paintings are less 
attractive. But they are all precious for the 
history of the Oratory and of Juilly. . . . Let us 
stop before some of these images. 

Father de Condren. ''God had rendered him," 
said Saint Chantal, "capable of instructing 
angels." His features are impressed with infinite 
gentleness; but the height of his forehead and 
the veiled splendor of his glance reveal an uncon- 
querable tenacity, and thanks to this contrast the 
whole face assumes a strange delicacy. 

Pierre de BeruUe died at the age of fifty-four, 
overcome by fatigue; his labor had been immense; 
he had created and guided his congregation, 
founded seminaries, dehvered sermons, written 
books, guided consciences, and he had been mixed 
up in affairs of state. It was Father de Condren 



Juilly 79 

who succeeded him in the office of Superior Gen- 
eral. He gave to the Oratory its permanent 
constitution and founded Juilly. 

With Father de Condren, the Oratory aban- 
doned the path which its founder had traced for 
it. It was less occupied in forming the clergy 
and instituting seminaries than in giving instruc- 
tion to lay youth. The original purpose of the 
congregation was thereafter followed and achieved 
by M. Olier and the priests of Saint Sulpice. The 
wishes of Louis XIII were not averse to this 
change, for which in any case Father de Condren 
had no dislike; he had taste and talent for teaching. 
The ancient abbey of Juilly was thus transformed 
into a model college called the Royal Academy 
(1638). The King authorized the institution to 
add the arms of France to the arms of the Oratory. 

Father de Condren himself prepared the new 
regulations for study and discipline of the young 
Academy. These regulations were a veritable 
reform in French education, — a durable and pro- 
found reform, for the programs of the University 
in the nineteenth century were drawn up in 
accordance with the principles of the Oratory. 

At that period the Jesuits were masters of edu- 
cation and instruction. They considered as the 
foundation of all studies a grammatical knowledge 
of the dead languages, and gave little attention 



80 The Spell of the Heart of France 

to history and the exact sciences. They had 
instituted that classical education which is so 
appropriate to the very genius of our nation that 
its ruin would perhaps be the downfall of our 
language, our taste and our literature. Never- 
theless, their method in certain respects was 
narrow and antiquated: they excluded the history 
• and the language of France from a college training. 
The work of the Oratorists was in a certain 
measure to Frenchify and modernize the instruc- 
tion of the Jesuits. They remained faithful to 
classic antiquity. A year before his death. Father 
de Condren said to Thomassin that he did not 
desire to leave this world imtil he had once more 
read the entire works of Cicero. However, the 
Ratio Studiorum, at Juilly, introduced great novel- 
ties in the college course. The masters were 
required to address the youths in their mother 
tongue and to put in their hands Latin grammars 
written in French. From that time they began 
by learning the rules of French orthography. 
Latin became obligatory only from the fourth 
class on. The Catechism was given in Latin only 
in the second class. History lessons were always 
given in French. In the study of Latin, without 
abandoning the use of themes, translations were 
preferred. Greek was taught in the same way, 
but its knowledge was not pushed as far, A 



Juilly 81 

special chair of history was instituted. The his- 
tory of France was given first place, and became 
the object of a three-year course. The private 
library of the pupils contained principally books 
on ancient and modern history. There were also 
geography lessons. Finally, in this Cartesian 
house, mathematics and physics naturally received 
great honor. 

They also taught drawing, music, horseman- 
ship, fencing and dancing. But comedies and 
ballets, which the Jesuits allowed their pupils, 
were replaced at Juilly by the sessions of a sort of 
literary Academy where the most advanced 
pupils imitated the French Academy. 

Richelieu, who had so profound and just an 
instinct for the interest of France in all directions, 
could not be indifferent to the enterprise of Father 
de Condren. He understood that the Oratorists 
were associating themselves with his great work, 
gave their methods "applause such as one could 
scarcely believe," and, when he founded a college 
in his natal town of Richelieu, laid out the regu- 
lations and the program in imitation of those 
which were in use at Juilly. 

Sainte-Beuve has done honor to the little 
schools of Port-Royal for this great revolution in 
teaching: "It is indeed," he says, "to these gentle- 
men of Port-Royal that the honor is due of having 



82 The Spell of the Heart of France 

put education in accord with the hterary progress 
which the French Academy accomphshed about 
the same time, and for having first introduced the 
regularity and elegance of French into the current 
of learned studies. To get rid of pedantry without 
ruining solidity, might have been their motto. . . . 
So, a great innovation! To teach children to read 
in French, and to choose in French the words 
which stood for the objects with which they were 
already acquainted and of which they knew the 
meaning: this was the point of departure of Port- 
Royal. . . ." (Note 6.) 

A historian of Juilly (M. Charles Hamel) has 
observed that the lower schools were opened only 
four years after the foundation of Juilly, and 
that we must restore to Father de Condren the 
glory of having been the first 'Ho get rid of 
pedantry without ruining sohdity," and to cause 
French to be spoken in the schools of France. 
(Note 7.) 

Father Bourgoing. This third superior was a 
harsh and absolute master. He was also a rather 
rough man of business and one who was not 
embarrassed by an excess of power. He imposed 
the authority of the rules in all possible ways. 
His conduct had a tinge of superb vehemence 
which contrasted strongly with the modesty and 
gentleness of his predecessors. The Jansenist 



Juilly 83 

heresy was commencing to hover around the 
Oratory. Father Bom-going drew back those 
who were straying, with a rough and heavy crook. 
He was, besides, as Cardinal Perraud says, in 
UOratoire de France, ''the hving model of the 
virtues which he desired that others should prac- 
tice." (Note 8.) He inflicted terrible penances. 
We behold him to his very last day ''shorten 
his sleep in spite of his need; endure the rigors of 
cold despite his advanced years ; continue his fasts 
in spite of his labors; finally afflict his body by 
all sorts of austerities without considering his 
bodily infirmities." Thus Bossuet expressed him- 
self in his funeral oration for Father B our going, 
one of the least celebrated, but one of the most 
magnificent, that he composed. We have only 
to read it to know the men and the spirit of the 
Oratory in the seventeenth century. 

Father de Sainte-Marthe. This man seems to 
have been a student, full of virtue, good sense and 
good fellowship, but a man who found himself 
very much at a loss in the midst of vexations. 
And it was exactly at the period of his govern- 
ment that the tempests were unloosed upon the 
Oratory. Jansenism had entered the house. 
Fathers Quesnel and Du Guet were expelled 
from the community. But these punishments did 
not satisfy the Archbishop of Paris, M. de Harlay, 



84 The Spell of the Heart of Prance 



who wished to govern the Oratory with a strong 
hand. In the midst of these griefs and intrigues 
the unfortunate Father de Sainte-Marthe exoner- 
ated himself, proclaimed his submission, preached 
concihation, sought to ward off the animosity of 
the Archbishop and the King, defended his con- 
gregation against the assaults of heresy, and went 
away in exile from province to province, until the 
day came when it was necessary for him to resign 
his office. . . . The more we look at the portrait 
of Father de Sainte-Marthe, the more we pity 
this good priest, who was evidently bom to Uve 
in fair weather. 

Father de la Tour. One of the most pleasing 
portraits in the refectory of Juilly, full of grace 
and mahce. Saint-Simon has also drawn a por- 
trait of Father de la Tour and the painter has 
added nothing to the sketch of the writer. ''He 
was tall of stature, well built, agreeable but im- 
posing of countenance, well known for his phant 
but fu-m mind, adroit but strong in his sermons, 
in the way he led in gay and amusing conversa- 
tion without departing from the character which 
he bore, excelUng by a spirit of 'wisdom, conduct 
and government, and held in the greatest con- 
sideration." 

******* 

We have arrived at the threshold of the eight- 



Juilly 85 

eenth century. Before going farther, let us evoke 
once more the remembrance of two illustrious 
guests of whom the old house was proud. 

They still show at Juilly the room of Bossuet. 
It is lined with very simple panehng and has an 
alcove. The furnishings are in the style of the First 
Empire. It is here that Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux, 
often slept in the course of his pastoral visits, for 
Juilly was situated in his diocese. He preached 
in the village chapel and presided at the exercises 
of the Academy. On August 6, 1696, he wrote to 
his nephew, Abb^ Bossuet: ''I came here to listen 
to a thesis which was dedicated to me. There 
are here a number of worthy people, and the 
flower of the Oratory. ..." 

The other ^' great man," whose memory has been 
preserved at Juilly is Jean de La Fontaine. 

He was scarcely twenty years old when a canon 
of Soissons, named Hericart, lent him some reli- 
gious books. The reading of these inflamed him 
with great devotion and he believed that he was 
called to the ecclesiastical state. He departed for 
Paris and entered the institution at the Oratory 
on April 27, 1641. This was his first distraction. 

A few weeks later his masters sent him to Juilly, 
under Father de Vemeuil, who was to prepare him 
for ordination. La Fontaine read Marot and 
looked out of the window. Now, as his room over- 



86 The Spell of the Heart of France 

looked the farmyard, he amused himself every 
day by watching the hens pick up their living. 
To get the sympathy of the ben-keeper, he let 
down by a cord his cap full of bread crumbs. 

Father Bourgoing, then superior of the congre- 
gation, was not the man to sympathize with the 
tastes and crotchets of Jean de La Fontaine; he 
sent him back to Paris, to the seminary of Saint- 
Magloire. Then one fine day, the young man 
went away as he had come, leaving behind him 
his brother, Claude de La Fontaine, who, taking 
his example seriously, had also entered the Ora- 
tory. His stay at Juilly does not seem to have 
left a very deep trace in its memory. But he 
had at least furnished the future students of the 
college with a very fine subject for Latin verses. 

It is well known that Canon Hericart, as he 
had not been able to make a priest of his friend, 
later decided to marry him to one of his relatives. 
La Fontaine went to the marriage as he had gone 
to the Oratory; he escaped from it in the same 
way. 

The fate of the Oratory of France was less 
glorious in the eighteenth century than it had 
been in the seventeenth: the theological quarrels 
which broke out as a result of the Bull Unigenitus 
divided and enfeebled the congregation. But the 
renown of Juilly did not suffer from this, and the 



Juilly 87 

college founded by Father de Condren prospered. 
The buildings of the old monastery were recon- 
structed and enlarged. The methods of instruc- 
tion remained the same. As to discipline, it is 
said to have been quite paternal, and was exercised 
by reprimands or affectionate chidings rather 
than by punishments. At Juilly, however, as in 
all colleges, the children continued to be whipped. 
In 1762, the Jesuits were expelled from France 
and their properties sold. This was apparently a 
great advantage for the Oratory : the closing of the 
colleges of the Company of Jesus made it the 
master of education. But the thoughtful Ora- 
torists did not fall into this illusion. ''It is the 
destruction of our congregation," said Father de 
la Valette at that time; he understood that this 
brutal blow touched the Church itself, even if some 
doubted this and others were unwilling to admit 
it. Besides, the succession of the Jesuits was too 
heavy a burden to be undertaken. The Oratory 
was not sufficiently numerous suddenly to take 
charge of so many houses; it found it necessary 
to associate with itself a great number of "lay 
brothers," whose vocation was doubtful; these 
young "regents" were generally found to be 
unprepared to undergo the constraints of a reli- 
gious rule. This was being discovered when the 
Revolution broke out. 



88 The Spell of the Heart of France, 

An old student of Juilly, Antoine Vincent 
Arnault, a tragic poet, author of Marius d Min- 
turne, Lucrece, Cincinnatus, etc., whom Napoleon 
wished to have as collaborator in writing a tragedy 
and who was the predecessor of Scribe in the 
French Academy, left some interesting memoirs 
entitled Souvenirs d'un sexagenaire. (Note 9.) He 
was born in 1766 and entered Juilly in 1776. He 
has told us of his college years, "the eight un- 
happiest years of his life." Thanks to him, we 
know the existence which was the rule at Juilly 
from 1780 to 1784, and what professors had charge 
of the instruction. The picture seems to me to 
be worth redrawing, now that we know the archi- 
tecture and the history of the school. 

The superior of the house at that time was 
Father Petit. "A skilled administrator, a pru- 
dent director, a mentality without prejudice or 
illusions, more of a philosopher than he perhaps 
beheved himself to be, indulgent and malevolent 
at once, he guided this great house with good 
words, and maintained admirable order in it for 
thirty years. . . . Rehgious, but not fanatical, 
he did not forget that he was director of a board- 
ing school and not of a seminary, and that the 
children who were confided to him were to hve 
in the world: so he was especially anxious that 



Juilly 89 

they should be turned into worthy men: this was 
his own expression." 

In truth, this '' admirable order" was sometimes 
troubled. The collegians of 1780 played their 
parts: they wrote little verses and little hbels 
against their masters, became enthusiastic about 
the American Revolution, and played at upris- 
ings. The wisdom and moderation of Father 
Petit did not always succeed in calming the revo- 
lutionary effervescence of these youths. The 
wind which commenced to blow across France 
blew hard even in the high monastic corridors of 
Juilly. 

The middle classroom was the most turbulent 
and the promptest to revolt against iniquity. One 
day these ''middles" decided to hang their prefect 
in effigy. The victim got angry, shut off recrea- 
tion and ordered the children to return to the 
schoolroom. Instantly the candles went out; 
dictionaries, candlesticks, writing desks, became 
so many projectiles which rained upon the pre- 
fect's back; struck down by a copy of the Gradus, 
the pedant fled. The class then built barricades 
and lit a bonfire, into which they threw the ferule, 
the mortarboard and the scholarship record 
which the enemy had left upon the field of battle. 
They refused to listen to overtures of peace, and 
remained deaf to the warnings of the Superior, 



90 The Spell of the Heart of France 

although they were in the habit of respecting 
them. 

From the viewpoint of a man who later went 
through several revolutions, Arnault here makes 
this judicious remark: "Whoever may be the indi- 
viduals of which it is composed, the mob always 
obeys the same principles. The breath of a child 
in a glass of water produces the same effects as 
the blast of the hurricane upon the ocean." 

It became necessary to turn the siege into a 
blockade. On the next day, vanquished by 
hunger, the scholars surrendered. They were 
promised a general amnesty. But, once in pos- 
session, the besiegers violated the treaty. ' ' Then," 
adds Arnault, "I understood what poUtics was; 
I saw that it was not always in accord with the 
morahty which we were so eloquently advised to 
respect as the equal of reUgion." And this was 
doubtless the reason why there were so many 
prefects of the Empire among the former pupils 
of Juilly! 

Father Petit was not the only Oratorist of whom 
Arnault handed down a good report. Father 
Viel, the translator of TeUmaque into Latin verse, 
showed so much justice and goodness in the col- 
lege that the students always arranged to rebel 
while he was traveUng, thus showing how much 
they respected him. Father Dotteville, the 



Juilly 01 

translator of Sallust and of Tacitus, built at 
Juilly a charming retreat where he cultivated 
literature and flowers. Father Prioleau, who taught 
philosophy, knew how to make aU work lovable, 
even the study of Aristotle's Categories. Father 
Mandar, who later became superior of the college, 
was famous as a preacher — he was compared to 
Massillon — and as a poet — he was compared to 
Gresset. His lively muse, fertile in songs, rose 
even to descriptive poetry. Father Mandar 
wrote a poem called the Chartreuse; for he was 
sensitive to the beauties of nature and Jean 
Jacques had sought his company. . . . These 
remained, even to the end of their life, faithful 
to their vocation. Others failed in this, and owed 
their great celebrity neither to translations nor 
to the practice of oratorical virtues. Juilly was a 
nursery of Revolutionists and of Conventionals. 

One day — science was still honored in this 
Cartesian college — it was decided to give the 
pupils a scientific recreation. Under the direction 
of their professor of physics, they built a fire 
balloon of paper, upon which a prefect of studies 
who indulged in fugitive verse wrote this quatrain 
of his own composition: 

^(We have grown too old for soap bubbles; 
In changing balloons we change pleasures. 
If this carried oiu" first homage to King Louis, 
The winds would blow it to the goal of our desires. 



92 The Spell of the Heart of France 

We do not know if the fire balloon came down 
in the park of Versailles. But we do know the 
names of the physicist and the poet of Juilly. 
The physicist was Father Fouche, and the poet 
was Father Billaud (Billaud-Varennes). Arnault 
remarks in this connection: ''Ten years after- 
ward, they showed themselves less gracious toward 
the monarch." 

Father BiUaud, good Father Billaud, as he was 
called at Juilly, was a young man of twenty-one 
years. He was the son of a lawyer of La Rochelle 
who had neither fortune nor clients. He had 
scarcely left college when he abducted a young 
girl and then became a member of a troupe of 
comedians. He was a failure on the stage and 
returned to La Rochelle. There he put on the 
stage a satirical comedy: La Femme comme il 
n'y en a plus, in which he defamed all the women 
of his town. It was hissed off the boards and he 
had to flee to Paris. As he was penniless, he 
entered the Oratory; and, as the Oratory needed 
regents for its colleges, they sent him to Juilly 
as prefect of studies. His pupils loved his good 
fellowship. But his superiors had very quickly 
seen what was under the mask. ''Billaud — To 
judge by the way in which he reads Latin, he 
does not know it very well. Has he brains? I 
have not had sufficient time to find out. But he 



The Fountain of Neptune, Versailles. 

From a water-color bv Blanche McManus. 



Juilly 93 

has a high opinion of himself, and I regard him 
as only a worldly man, clothed in the habit of the 
Oratory, coolly regular and honest, who has tried 
hard not to compromise himself in the last few 
months, for when he first came here his behavior 
was not of the best. Though he may be judicious 
in his conduct, I do not think that he is suited to 
the Oratory, because of his age, of what he has 
been, and of what he is." Such was the judgment 
passed upon him by his superior, for the Superior 
General of the congregation, in 1784. Shortly 
afterward it was learned that Father Billaud had 
offered a tragedy to the comedian Larive: he 
was expelled. . . . We know what followed: his 
entry of the bar at Paris, his marriage to the 
natural daughter of a farmer-general, his friend- 
ship with Marat and Ptobespierre, his complicity 
in the massacres of September, his ferocities and 
cowardices, his turnabout on the ninth of Ther- 
midor, his banishment to Guiana, his escape, his 
death in San Domingo. He ended his career as 
a teacher of parrots. 

Was good Father Billaud of Juilly a hypocrite? 
Did he already dissimulate under the appearance 
of cold regularity the wild passions of the .Jacobin 
of '93? ... I prefer the explanation of Arnault 
who, decidedly, does not lack judgment: "Father 
Billaud, who later became so frightfully famous 



94 The Spell of the Heart of France 

under the name of Billaud-Varennes, also appeared 
to be a very good man at that time, and perhaps 
he was so; perhaps he would even have been so 
all his life, if he had remained a private citizen, if 
the events which provoked the development of his 
atrocious policy and the application of his fright- 
ful theories had never presented themselves. I 
would prefer to beheve that morally, as physically, 
we all carry in ourselves the germs of more than 
one grave malady, from which we seem to be 
exempt as long as we do not meet the circumstance 
which is capable of provoking the explosion." 

Father Fouche, professor of physics, was a year 
older than Father Billaud. He also passed at 
Juilly as a good fellow, and interested his pupils 
by showing them spectacular physical experi- 
ments. He, however, did not enter the Oratory 
from necessity or caprice. He was brought up 
by the Oratorists of Nantes, and had come to the 
institution at Paris with the intention of devoting 
himself to the teaching of science. He had no 
bent for theology, but was fond of studying 
Horace, Tacitus and Euclid's Commentaries. 
He was soon to abandon Euclid; but he did not 
forget the examples of perfect wickedness which 
were presented to him by Tacitus, and he served 
the Terror, the Directory and Napoleon with the 
cold infamy of a freedman; as for Horace, he was 



Juilly 95 

never faithless to him, for he had a taste for 
gardens and for friendship. 

He was regent at Venddme, then at Juilly, then 
at Arras, where he made the acquaintance of 
Robespierre. He was prefect of studies at Nantes 
when the Revolution threw him into pubUc Hfe. 

He never forgot Juilly. Perhaps some of the 
verses of Horace were associated in his mind with 
the memory of the trees of the park and the waters 
of the pool. ... In 1802, when he was Minister 
of the General Police, he wished to come to visit 
his old college, he who, in the time of the Terror, 
in the Ni^vre and at Lyons, had added to the most 
frightful massacres the most childish sacrilege. 
Events then passed easily over the imagination 
of men, and even more quickly over the imagina- 
tion of a Fouche. An ex-Oratorist, Father Dotte- 
ville, accompanied him to Juilly. The pupils 
received the visitors by singing verses of their 
own composition: 

Leaving, to revisit your friends, 
The worries of the ministry, 
Such leisures as are allowed you 
In that solitary asyluro; 
Our forebears had the good fortune 
To profit by your lessons .... 

This last allusion appeared a Uttle too precise 
to Fouche, who turned his back on the singers. 
But, after this moment of ill humor, his Excellency 
showed himseK very amiable. Fathers Lombois 



96 The Spell of the Heart of France 

and Creniere, his former associates, who still lived 
at Juilly, refused to speak to him, however. But 
he did not despair of weakening their determina- 
tion, and it was he who in 1806 gave to the chapel 
of the college the magnificent statue of Berulle, 
of which I have spoken to you. 

It was natural that Fouche, when he became an 
official under Bonaparte, should show himseK less 
vehemently irreligious than at the period when he 
was the colleague of CoUot d'Herbois. It was 
even necessary for him to pretend devotion when 
Louis XVIII consented to give him a civil posi- 
tion. But it is impossible to read without smiling 
the following lines written to M. Charles Hamel, 
the historian of Juilly, by L. Roberdeau, the 
former secretary of Fouch6: "Here are the facts, 
whose exactness I can guarantee to you. The 
curate of Ferrieres always had a place set for him 
at the chateau, when the Duke of Otranto was 
there. He received from him annually a supple- 
mentary salary of six hundred francs and was 
allowed to sign wood, bread and meat tickets ad 
libitum, as well as to call for any other kind of aid 
or to distribute arms. The Duke also gave a 
magnificent dais to the church. [This touch is 
exquisite, when attributed to the former conven- 
tional who had methodically plundered and 
wrecked all the churches of the Nievre.J The 



Juilly 97 

doctor of the chateau was requked to take care 
of all the invaUd poor of his domams; he exacted 
that they should receive the same attention as 
himseK, etc." But this is the most admirable: ''I 
do not know in what sentiments the Duke of 
Otranto died; but I know that, when Louis 
XVIII offered him an ambassadorship of the 
first rank, he chose the humble court of Dresden 
because the King of Saxony was known to be a 
sincerely religious man." I do not doubt that 
Fouche may have thus talked to his credulous 
secretary. It is possible that he even said the 
same thing to Louis XVIII. But the Kins: assur- 
edly did not believe it, and was right. 

I cannot decide to leave Fouche without quot- 
ing in this place some Hues from a magnificent 
portrait drawn by Charles Nodier. This passage 
is almost unknown, being buried in the Diction- 
naire de la conversation; M. Charles Hamel has 
quoted it in his book: "... There was not a 
feature in his face, not a Une in all its structiu-e, 
on which work or care had not left their imprint. 
His visage was pale, with a paleness which was 
peculiar to himseh. It was a cold but living tone, 
like that which time gives to monuments. The 
power of his eyes, which were of a very clear blue, 
but deprived of any hght in their glance, soon 
prevailed over all the impressions which his first 



98 The Spell of the Heart of France 

aspect produced on one. Their curious, exacting, 
profound, but immutably dull fixedness, had a 
quality which was frighirul. ... I asked myself 
by what operation of the will he could thus 
succeed in extinguishing his soul, in depriving the 
pupil of its animated transparency, in with- 
drawing his glance into an invisible sheath as a 
cat retracts its claws." This is wonderful! 

^"Fathef Fouchejand Father Billaud were not 
the only masters of Juilly who played a part in 
the Revolution. About the same time Father 
Gaillard was regent of the sixth class, and Father 
Bailly was prefect of studies. This Father Gaillard 
was a terrible man; he frightened his pupils by 
his severity and his intractable piety. ''Here is a 
man who, if justice had been done, would have 
been btirned, together with his writings," he said 
before5a portrait of Jean Jacques. In 1792 he 
left Juilly, having exchanged his robe for the 
uniform of the National Guard; he went with his 
company to Melun, where he married and became 
president of the criminal court. Later he found 
means of paying a compliment to the First Consul, 
and had the good luck again to come in contact 
with his former associate Fouche. The latter 
elevated him to the Court of Cassation, and made 
him one of his agents; Gaillard rendered great 



Juilly 99 

services to the Duke of Otranto, at the court of 
Ghent. 

Father Bailly also left the Oratory to take part 
in pubUc affairs; but he had more moderate 
opinions. As a deputy to the Convention from 
Meaux, he voted against the death of the King; 
he was one of the Thermidorians, took part in 
the Eighteenth Brumaire, and became a prefect 
of the Empire. . . . 

If we believe with Taine that the Revolution 
was entirely an outcome of Cartesianism and of 
the classic spirit, what a beautiful allegory is this 
assembly of future Revolutionists in square caps, 
under the wide branches of Malebranche's chest- 
nut tree! 

******* 

The Oratory did not survive the Revolution, 
but Juilly outlived the Oratory. 

After 1789, the congregation was divided against 
itself. Some fathers were willing to take the 
oath; others refused it. Some of the young asso- 
ciates scorned the authority of the Superior 
General. The law of August 18, 1792, dissolved 
the Oratory. But the Oratorists remained at 
Juilly at the very height of the tumult. One day 
mobs from Meaux invaded the buildings and 
pillaged the chapel; even after this, a few priests 
and a score of pupils again assembled in the col- 



100 The Spell of the Heart of France 

lege. They left it only during three months in 
1793, when a military hospital was installed in 
place of the school. After the Terror was over, 
the woman who had acquired Juilly as a national 
property returned it to its former masters. The 
college peopled itself anew. 

Napoleon dreamed for a time of reestablishing 
the Oratory and of putting it in charge of all 
secondary education; Jerome was brought up at 
Juilly. But this project was abandoned. But at 
least, when he reorganized the University, Fon- 
tanes was inspired by the rules and the pro- 
grams of the colleges of the Oratory. 

The last Oratorists retired in 1828. Juilly 
passed under the direction of the Abbes de Scorbiac 
and de Salinis. Then comes another of the glori- 
ous moments of its history. In 1830 and in 1831 
Lamennais became the guest of Juilly. Enveloped 
in his long black quilted coat, following by choice 
the path at the water's edge — doubtless to redis- 
cover there memories of the pool of La Chesnaie, 
Lamennais carried back and forth, under the 
trees of the old park, his passionate dreams. It 
was here that he meditated his articles for 
UAvenir, conceived the plan of the ''General 
Agency for the Defense of Religious Liberty," 
composed the ardent diatribes in which he claimed 
independence for the Church, the right of teaching 



Juilly 101 

for Catholics, freedom to associate for the monks. 
It was here that he charmed his friends by the 
sensitiveness of his heart and frightened them by 
the boldness of his imagination. It was from 
Juilly that he returned to Paris to appear with 
Lacordaire before the Court of Assizes. It was 
from Juilly that he left for Rome. . . . 

Abb4 Bautain and Abbe Carl, then Abbe 
Maricourt, directed Juilly after MM. de Scorbiac 
and de Salinis, up to the time (1867) when the 
reconstituted Oratory reentered in possession of 
the college founded by Father de Condren. 

In 1852 a few priests had been united by Father 
P^tetot, ex-curate of Saint Roch, for the purpose 
of restoring the congregation dispersed at the 
time of the Revolution. They had sought and 
found the traditions of the former Oratory, and 
slowly "reconstituted in its entirety the pacific 
and studious city built more than two centuries 
before by Father de Berulle." ' ' They could then," 
said Cardinal Perraud, ''place a hving model 
under their eyes in order to imitate it." The 
Oratory was thus reborn with the ancient rule 
which had formerly been its originally — a simple 
association of lay priests submissive to bishops, 
it asked of its members neither the vow of obedi- 
ence nor the vow of poverty. (Note 10.) It 
was natural that it should undertake the direction 



102 The Spell of the Heart of France 

of Juilly, the most ancient and the most glorious 
of its houses. ... 

Here I end the rather desultory notes which I 
have made while visiting Juilly and rummaging 
through its history. I wish to speak neither of 
yesterday, nor of today . . . , nor of tomorrow. 
I have not attempted to plead for the masters of 
Juilly, now threatened with again being expelled 
from their house. I have not the ability to defend 
them, and besides one cannot plead against a 
position already taken, or folly, or wickedness. 

Nor have I the candor to believe that the illus- 
trious phantoms with which are populated the 
shady avenues and the long galleries of Juilly, 
Malebranche, Bossuet, La Fontaine, Lamennais, 
can move the vulgar pedants to whom France now 
belongs. But if by chance I have evoked ''the 
long, mobile and flat face . . . the physiognomy 
like an agitated fizgig . . . the little bloody 
eyes . . . the restless and convulsive attitudes" 
of Joseph Fouche, I have allowed myself this 
historical amusement, without thinking that the 
President of the Council may be able to take the 
same pleasure in it. Father Fouch^ and the repre- 
sentative of the Mountain, the bad Oratorist and 
the good Jacobin, must be congenial to him, with- 
out doubt; but there is also the Duke of Otranto: 
M. Combes has not yet got to that point. 



Juilly 103 

Finally, if I have tried to show that the Oratory 
is attached by a close bond to the past of France, 
that the mold in which, for two centuries and a 
half, French intelligence was founded was fabri- 
cated at Juilly, and that the very basis of our 
education remains Oratorist in spite of every- 
thing, I have not for a single instant dreamed that 
these considerations based on history could awake 
the least respect or the least gratitude among the 
politicians, for these gentlemen are sincerely 
convinced that France was born on the day when 
a majority of three votes, captured, bought or 
stolen, made them ward bosses. 



VII 

THE CHATEAU DE MAISONS 

OT long ago the Chateau of Asay-le-Rideau, 
a masterpiece of the French art of the 
sixteenth century, was in peril. Today it 
is the turn of the Chateau de Maisons, a master- 
piece of the French art of the seventeenth cen- 
tury. But this time it is not a question of 
a peril which is more or less distant. The destruc- 
tion of Maisons is a fact which is decided upon. 
The property has just fallen into the hands of a 
real estate speculator. He intends to cut up 
what remains of the park into house lots. As 
to the chateau, the wreckers will first rip out the 
magnificent mantelpieces and the incomparable 
sculptures which adorn the walls; they will sell 
them; then they will tear down the building. The 
fragments will serve to fill the moats, and on the 
ground thus made level they will build suburban 
villas. 

The Department of Fine Arts looks on power- 
lessly at this act of abominable vandalism, for 
the Chateau de Maisons is not listed as a national 

104 



The Chateau de Maisons 105 

monument. And not one of those amateurs who 
spend fortunes every day to buy childish orna- 
ments, restored pictures and ragged tapestries, 
not a single one of these can be found who will 
preserve for France one of the monuments which 
are the glory of French architecture. Not one of 
those public administrations which incessantly 
build at enormous expense hospitals, asylums, 
colleges, has thought that it might be able, by 
utilizing this vast building, to render at the same 
stroke a brilliant service to art and to history! 
It is said that the department of Seine-et-Oise is 
looking for a site on which to build a hospital; 
why did it not long ago decide to appropriate the 
Chateau de Maisons for this purpose? 

It is intolerable to think that one of the most 
beautiful residences of old France, situated at the 
very gates of Paris, is going to be stupidly de- 
molished, at a time when the curators of our 
museums can find the necessary money to pur- 
chase archaeological curiosities and foreign trifles! 
(Note 11.) And you will see that, as soon as 
Maisons is stripped by the house wreckers, it 
will be found very proper to purchase at great 
expense for the Louvre a few of the statues and 
a part of the bas-reUefs which vandals will have 
been permitted to tear from the place where 
Frangois Mansart had them placed! 



106 The Spell of the Heart of France 

The agony of Maisons will have lasted more than 
seventy years. It was the banker Laffitte who, 
after 1830, commenced the work of destruction, 
made way with the terraces and the cascades which 
were placed between the chateau and the Seine, 
and demolished the great stables, a magnificent 
building decorated with precious sculptures, which 
was the marvel of Maisons. It was he who cut 
up the greater part of the park, five hundred 
hectares, and cut down the centenarian trees of 
the domain of the Longueils. 

After Laffitte, what remained of Maisons passed 
to less barbarous hands. Another proprietor 
tried to restore some beauty to the fragments of 
park which had been preserved. Even today there 
remain pretty thickets, a fine greensward, avenues 
lined with great antique busts, while the chateau 
itself is almost intact. 

Every Parisian knows, at least by having seen 
it from the window of a railway train, this superb 
construction which tomorrow will be no more than 
a pile of rubble and plaster. It ravishes us by the 
beauty of its fines, by the happy choice of the 
site where it is placed, by the just proportion of the 
architecture to the hillside on which it is seated. 

The facade facing the court of honor is com- 
posed of two superposed orders. In the pediments 
of the windows are sculptured eagles, and women, 



The Chateau de Maisons 107 

terminated like sphinxes, as lions or dogs. To 
the right and left, before the pavilions of the 
wings, rise two projections which form terraces 
at the height of the first story. The whole monu- 
ment has a charming air of nervous elegance. 

The vestibule (here was formerly the marvelous 
grille which today closes the gallery of Apollo in 
the Louvre) rests on beautiful Doric columns. 
The vault is decorated, on its four faces, with grand 
bas-reliefs representing four divinities: never did 
sculptures show more docility, more suppleness, 
in clothing architectural forms without overloading 
them, without injuring the purity of their Unes. 
And everywhere the eagle of the Longueils unfolds 
its great wings of stone. 

In the halls of this devastated cha,teau, there 
remains nothing but the sculptured decoration. 
But what a masterpiece! Under the strong and 
intelUgent discipline of Frangois Mansart, Gilles 
Gu^rin, Buyster, Van Obstal and Sarazin sur- 
passed themselves. The great mantelpiece where, 
under a medallion of the great Conde, an antique 
triumph is marshaled, the adorable playing 
children which Van Obstal carved above the 
cornice of the grand stone staircase, the noble 
caryatides which sustain the dome of the bed- 
chamber, all the decoration of the guardroom 
where, about 1840, a poor painter called Bidault 



108 The Spell of the Heart of France 

painted tiresome views of the Bay of Naples, all 
the sculptures scattered through the different 
rooms of the chateau, form one of the most 
perfect achievements, if not the most perfect, 
which the seventeenth century has left us. The 
wreckers are going to ruin it, they are going to 
annihilate it. 

And they will annihilate also that admirable 
dining hall where the Count of Artois set up, at 
the end of the eighteenth century, Houdon's 
Ceres, Boizot's Vertumnus, Clodion's Erigone, and 
Foucou's Flora. Plaster casts have replaced the 
originals on the ancient pedestals. But the hall 
has retained its coffered ceiling, whose bas-rehefs 
equal, in grace, fancy and richness of invention, 
the most delicate works of the Renaissance, in 
surety and simphcity of execution, the purest 
works of Greek genius. They will find wretches 
who will pull down these sacred stones with pick 
and crowbar! And they will also find those who 
will tear from the Uttle oratory of Maisons its 
exquisite, its delicious marquetries! 

When we wander through the deserted apart- 
ments of the old mansion, now devoted to demoU- 
tion, the heart contracts, and we ask with anger 
how such vandalism is still possible in a period 
when everybody, even to the least politician, talks 
of art and beauty! 



The Chateau de Maisons 109 

The Chateau de Maisons was built by Frangois 
Mansart, between 1642 and 1651, for Rene de 
Longueil. 

The family of Longueil, originating in Nor- 
mandy, where its feudal possessions were near 
Dieppe, possessed the territory of Maisons from 
the end of the fourteenth century. It has increased 
it by successive acquisitions. 

Ren4 de Longueil, Councilor in Parliament, had 
just been named president of a court, when he 
commissioned Mansart to build him a new chateau 
on his domain. He gave entire freedom to his 
architect in plan and decoration. It is related that 
Mansart, after he had built the right wing, leveled 
it with the ground to begin it over again on a new 
plan, because he was not satisfied with his work. 
The expense was enormous: it has been estimated 
at more than six millions. Maisons, when it was 
finished, was considered one of the most beautiful 
chateaux of France. How could Longueil afford 
this royal fancy? We are very ill-informed on 
this point today. All that is known is that in 
1650 the president was named superintendent of 
finance; when, shortly afterward, he was dismissed, 
he was responsible for this charming and signifi- 
cant remark: "They are wrong; I have taken 
care of my own business; I was about to look out 
for theirs," 



110 The Bpell of the Heart of France 

Louis XIV sometimes visited Maisons. He 
came there unexpectedly with the court, July 
10, 1671, fleeing from Saint-Germain, where the 
Duke of Anjou was dying. Bossuet brought the 
King the news of the death, and the Queen's fool, 
Tricomini, transmitted it to Mile, de Montpensier 
in these terms: "You, great lords, you will all die 
like the least of men; here is one who comes to 
say that your nephew is dead." This fool talked 
like Bossuet. Mile, de Montpensier adds that she 
went to pay her respects to the King and that she 
wept bitterly with him. "He was deeply afflicted, 
and with reason, for this child was very pretty." 

After the death of Ren6 de Longueil, the chateau 
passed to his descendants, the last of whom died 
in 1732. It then passed to the Marquis of Soye- 
court, who let it fall into ruin; but in 1777 the 
Count of Artois bought it, restored it, and embel- 
hshed it magnificently. 

We reach the upper stories of the ch§,teau by a 
narrow and winding staircase, ensconced in the 
thickness of the wall. Here is a maze of corridors 
and tiny chambers. A larger apartment, however, 
exists in the center of the building, below the 
lantern which crowns the roof. It is ornamented 
with mythological paintings and Danae adorns 
the ceiling over the bed in the alcove. This is 
the chamber of Voltaire. 




FRANQOIS MARIE AROUET VOLTAIRE 



The Chateau de Maisons 111 

The great intimacy between Voltaire and the 
President de Maisons is well known. The latter, 
great-grandson of the creator of the chateau, 
was a studious young man of delicate tendencies. 
At the age of eighteen he was President of Parlia- 
ment. He was said to be a good Latinist. His 
education had been irrehgious and he loved science. 
He had established a chemical laboratory, where 
he manufactured the most perfect Prussian blue 
which could be found in Em-ope, and a botanic 
garden of rare plants where he cultivated coffee. 
He belonged to the Academy of Science, and also 
possessed a collection of coins. 

In 1723 Voltaire came to make his home with 
his friend. He found there a good reception and a 
society ready to admire him. He knew, above all, 
that the President was the nephew of Madame 
de Villars, and Voltaire was then in all the heat 
of his passion for the Marshal's wife. . . . 

He arrived at Maisons in the month of Novem- 
ber. He planned to finish liis tragedy of Marianne 
in this retreat. But he was immediately taken sick 
with the smallpox and thought he would die. 
So he sent for the curate of Maisons and con- 
fessed. The Danae of the alcove possibly heard the 
confession of Voltaire! Doctor Gervasi saved the 
dying man by making him drink "two hundred 
pints of lemonade." As soon as he was cured, to 



112 The Spell of the Heart of France 

disembarrass his hosts and not abuse their good- 
ness, Voltaire had himself taken to Paris. Then 
occurred an episode which almost became tragic. 
We must let Voltaire tell it: 

''I was scarcely two hundred yards from the 
chateau when a part of the ceiling of the chamber 
where I had lain fell in flames. The neighboring 
chambers, the apartments which were below them, 
the precious furniture with which they were 
adorned, all were consumed by the fire. The loss 
amounted to a hundred thousand livres and, 
without the help of the engines for which they 
sent to Paris, one of the most beautiful ediJ&ces 
of the kingdom would have been destroyed. 
They hid this strange news from me on my arrival ; 
I knew it when I awoke; you cannot imagine how 
great was my despair; you know the generous 
care which M. de Maisons had taken of me; 
I had been treated like a brother in his house, and 
the reward of so much goodness was the burning 
of his chateau. I could not conceive how the fire 
had been able to catch so suddenly in my chamber, 
where I had left only an almost extinguished 
brand. I learned that the cause of this conflagra- 
tion was a beam which passed exactly under the 
fireplace. . . . The beam of which I speak had 
charred little by little from the heat of the 
hearth. . . . 



The Chateau de Maisons 113 

"Madame and Monsieur de Maisons received 
the news more tranquilly than I did; their gener- 
osity was as great as their loss and as my grief. 
M. de Maisons crowned his bounty by giving me 
the news himself in letters which make very evi- 
dent that he excels in heart as in mind; he occupied 
himself with the care of consoling me and it almost 
seemed as if it had been my chateau which was 
burned." 

And it is not only the shade of Voltaire which 
haunts the apartments of Maisons! We may also 
be shown the chamber of Lafayette. In addition, 
decorations in Empire style recall to us that in 
1804 the chateau was bought and inhabited by 
Lannes. . . . 

But what good is it to evoke these memories, 
since the admirable beauty of the architecture 
and of the decorations has not sufficed to arrest 
the enterprise of the housebreakers? (Note 12.) 




VIII 
THE VALLEY OF THE OISE 

'HEN the first automobiles made their 
appearance upon the highways, some 
persons thought that, thanks to this 
new mode of locomotion, the French were finally 
going to discover the thousand beauties of France. 
They awoke from their dream when they heard 
the conversations of automobihsts. The latter, 
when they returned from their excursions, told 
of the achievements of the engine, the misfortunes 
of the tires, the treacheries of the road. They 
computed distances, counted kilometers, passed 
judgment on macadam; but of the country trav- 
ersed they had seen, it was manifest, only the 
wide ribbon of the road unrolling before their 
cars. If one talked to them of the picturesque- 
ness of a region through which they had passed, 
they replied: "Too steep grades!"; and they 
cursed the rough cobbles when one praised to them 
the pretty church in a village through which they 
had passed. They were full of stories of autos, 
as hunters are of hunting yarns; but every one 

114 



The Valley of the Oise 115 

knows that the beauty of the forest is the last 
thing a hunter thinks of. The chauffeurs went 
into ecstasies at the memory of a straight, smooth, 
deserted highway, drawn Uke an arrow for leagues 
across an endless plain, far from the villages which 
are populated by hens, children and straying 
dogs. The most romantic celebrated the pleasure 
of speed, the intoxication of danger. In all of 
them one guessed, though none would consent 
to avow it, the wild pride of hurling themselves 
across the world, with a terrible uproar, in the 
midst of universal fright, hke petty scourges of 
God. 

Some protested, and swore that it is easy to 
avoid the contagion of this dehrium, that they 
themselves had succeeded in using their machiae 
as a commodious vehicle and not as a simple 
instrument of sport. I only half believed them. 
Some experiences had shown me that one feels 
himself becoming an automobihst an hour after 
one is seated in an automobile. . . . 

But recently one of my friends asserted: ''Your 
experiences prove nothing. You chose your auto 
badly, or perhaps your chauffeur, or even your 
companions. Three conditions are indispensable 
for traveling, or rather for loitering, in an automo- 
bile: 1. A firm decision to see everything, which 
depends on you alone; 2. A docile chauffeur; 3. 



116 The Spell of the Heart of France 

A comfortable auto of moderate speed. My 
chauffeur and my machine fulfil the two latter 
conditions. Arrange the itinerary yourself. We 
will stop as often as you please. WiU an experi- 
ence of three days consecrated to archaeology 
seem conclusive to you?" 

I proposed to my friend to pass in review all 
the churches of the Oise Valley from Saint Leu 
d'Esserent to Noyon. . . . There is not in this 
part of France a single village whose church is not 
worthy of a visit. It is the cradle of Gothic art. 

My friend was right. You can loiter in an auto- 
mobile; but it is necessary, to be successful, to 
be a lover of loafing almost to a mania, and to 
be a lover of sightseeing until it is a passion. 

If you are not sustained by a tenacious and 
obstinate curiosity, you immediately succumb to 
the mania of automobihsm. Do not speak of the 
attraction of rapidity; for, to get rid of this, there 
is a sure and simple means, that of choosing a 
machine of medium speed. But, whatever may be 
the rapidity of the machine, you remain exposed 
to a double obsession. There is at first the search 
for a good road, the hatred of cobblestones, dirt 
roads and badly kept pavements; doubtless an 
automobile, well built and prudently driven, can 
overcome the most difficult roads; but the fear 
of jolts and the terror of breakdowns cause us to 



The Valley of the Oise 117 

see, always and everywhere, the good road, where 
the machine reaches its maximum of speed. 
Every detom* becomes odious if it compels the 
abandonment of a smooth road for more dangerous 
crossroads. The chauffeur is therefore desirous 
of following blindly the line marked on his special 
map. (Let us remark in passing that maps for 
the use of automobilists are generally detestable.) 
But the essential peculiarity of the state of mind 
common to automobilists is a disgust with halts. 
"Keep on, keep on!" a mysterious voice seems to 
cry to us whenever there comes a desire to stop. 
Nothing hurries us; we are loafing; we have long 
hours ahead of us before we reach the end of the 
day's rim; nevertheless the briefest stop seems to 
be an unnecessary delay. We can no longer admit 
the idea of immobility; we experience a sort of 
ennui when trees, houses and men cease their 
regular flight along both sides of the road. Then we 
understand how it is that so many automobihsts 
are happy in driving between moving pictures, 
without looking at anything, and how they get 
from it a pleasure which is both careless and 
frenzied. 

These are unfortunate circumstances for the 
contemplation of landscapes and of monuments. It 
is, however, possible to triumph over them. The 
slavery of the good road can be escaped, But 



118 The Spell of the Heart of France 

do not count upon it without a veritable effort of 
the will. 

If one is master of himself as of his machine, 
then traveling in an auto becomes delightful, 
for one can modify, shorten, lengthen, the itiner- 
ary of the excursion according to one's fancy. 
We turn aside at a crossroad to climb a hill, from 
which we hope to discover an agreeable outlook, 
or perhaps to visit a church of whose spire, rising 
in the midst of the woods, a ghmpse has been 
caught. If we perceive that we have passed, 
without noticing it, a monument or a picturesque 
site, we turn back. Yes, we turn back. This 
assertion will leave more than one chauffeur 
incredulous. But everything is possible when one 
really has the taste of travel, even to losing two 
minutes by turning his machine around on a 
straight road. 

This way of traversing the highroads of France 
has, I admit, its inconveniences, the most serious 
of which is the necessity of incessantly watching 
the map to guide the chauffeur at every fork. 
The signboard always appears too late, when the 
machine has already made the wrong turn. 
The speed of the auto is such that it is not possible 
to study the map and to enjoy the view at the 
same time. It is necessary to choose. The wisest 
plan is to make up your mind to miss the road 



The Valley of the Oise 119 

occasionally. The mistake is so quickly corrected! 
I also recognize that travehng in an auto will 
never replace the slow promenade, in which one 
stopped at every turn of the route, amused by 
people and by things. But it has the great advan- 
tage of annihilating distance, of bringing sites and 
monuments close to one another, of permitting 
rapid comparisons without any effort of memory, 
and of revealing the general characteristics of a 
whole region. It suits synthetic minds. It repels 
a httle those who have the passion of analysis. 
In short it makes us acquainted with the forest, 
but leaves us ignorant of the beauty of the 
trees. . . . 

* :if * * ^ if if 

From Paris to Chantilly there is at first the 
monotonous plateau which separates the valley 
of the Mame from that of the Oise. In this 
gently rolling plain the villages are numerous, and 
everywhere, overlooking the housetops, rise the 
pointed or saddle-roofed spires of old belfries. 
There is not a hamlet of the Ile-de-France which 
does not possess a precious and exquisite church. 
It is here, on the soil of the royal domain, that 
the soul of France was formed. It is here that 
its national art was born. 

We will stop, as the luck of the road wills. 

Louvres formerly possessed two churches: one 



120 The Spell of the Heart of France 

of them has disappeared and of it there remains 
only a fine Romanesque belfry; in the other, which 
shows the somewhat absurd elegance of the fif- 
teenth century, we see a frieze of vine leaves 
running all around the wall. And behold, at the 
very first stop, in this petty village, a charming 
resume of the whole of French art; a robust 
Romanesque tower, finished in the first period of 
pointed Gothic and, beside the gray belfry, the 
excessive and delightful luxury of flamboyant 
Gothic. A league farther on, the church of Marly- 
la-Ville offers a perfect example of the art of the 
thirteenth century; with its little flying buttresses 
and its low triforium, one might say that it was 
the tiny model for a great cathedral. By the side of 
the road, a poor half-ruined shed, with a broken 
roof, a hollowed pavement and moldy walls, is the 
church of Fosses; in its misery and its degradation, 
the humble nave of the twelfth century still 
preserves some remnants of its pure beauty. . . . 
A glance at the pleasing Renaissance fagade of 
the church of Luzarches. . . . The automobile 
rolls along the edge of the forest. . . . Villas of 
horsebreeders and jockeys. . . . Some Enghsh 
cottages. . . . The immense greensward and the 
very uneven cobbled street of Chantilly. ... A 
few more woods, and we behold the wide valley 
of the Oise. 



The Valley of the Oise 121 

On the opposite hill rises the church of Saint- 
Leu-d'Esserent, on a large terrace, above the 
houses and the gardens of the town. The apse 
turned toward the Oise, the robust flying but- 
tresses and the radiating chapels, two great square 
towers which flank the choir, the tower of the 
porch with its tapering steeple, the grand and 
harmonious mass of the edifice, aU give to this 
church the aspect of a proud and gracious citadel. 

Saint-Leu-d'Esserent is one of the most moving 
types of the architecture of the twelfth century, 
of that architecture which is called transitional. 
The fagade is still semi-Romanesque, but its 
openings are already finer and more numerous. 
Internally, the mixture of Romanesque and 
pointed gives to the monument an extraordi- 
narily varied aspect; the arches which separate 
the nave from the low side aisles are broken; 
the full semicircle reappears in the triforium, 
and in the upper windows the arch is pointed 
again. The vaulting is formed by the intersection 
of pointed arches; but in the chapels of the apse 
there are trilobes inscribed in circular arches. 
And this diversity of styles is here the result 
neither of gropings nor of fresh starts; it results 
from a marvelously conceived plan in which the 
builders knew how to mingle and harmonize the 
beauties of tradition and the audacities of the 



122 The Spell of the Heart of France 

new art. The Romanesque architecture had no 
period of decadence and, on the other hand, at 
the period when Saint-Leu-d'Esserent was built, 
the time of research and of trial whence emerged 
the pointed architecture was already past. It 
is the meeting of the two styles which renders so 
magnificent certain churches of the twelfth cen- 
tury, such as Saint-Leu-d'Esserent and Noyons. 

The ambulatory of the choir was enriched in a 
free and infinitely harmonious style; the columns 
and the capitals, even as early as this, show an 
admirable purity of style. 

Saint-Leu-d'Esserent was an important priory 
of the Cluniac order. Some arcades of the cloister 
still adhere to the wall of the church. Other 
remains of the monastery exist on private property. 
We would have been pleased to visit them. The 
proprietor answered us: "It is impossible; this is 
the day I dry my washing." An inhabitant of 
Saint-Leu-d'Esserent said to us a few moments 
later, in a mysterious tone: ''The monks were 
rich. There is buried treasure there. That man 
is sifting all the soil on his land: he is looking for 
gold. . . ." (Saint-Leu is sixty kilometers from 
Paris.) 

4: 4: « ii: :^ :{: * 

For two days we are going to follow the valley 
where the river slowly coils its long bends through 




CHURCH OP SAINT-LEU-D ESSERENT 



The Valley of the Oise 123 

the wheat fields and the poplars. The low hiUs, 
covered with forests, lie in the distance and never 
come near enough to force the Oise to sudden 
detours. This river is not Uke the Marne, 
incessantly turned aside by the spur of a hill. 
It flows indolently under a pale horizon, in a 
vast landscape whose shades are infinitely delicate, 
and whose lines are infinitely soft. It bears silent 
barges through the fertile plains. Daughter of 
the north, it reflects in its clear green waters 
villages of brick. The smoke of workshops 
mingles with the mist-banks of its sky. At night 
the fights of the glass furnaces brighten its banks. 
B}^ talking with the men who drive their horses 
upon the towpath, it is easy to guess that the 
Oise is born in Belgium. 

Bell-towers dot the valley on both banks of the 
river. That of Montataire rises above the trees 
of a park at the top of a bluff. The church possesses 
an exquisite portal surmounted by a frightfully 
mutilated bas-relief of the Annunciation; but 
how much grace the draperies still possess! 

It is useless to stop at Creil, since a barbarous 
municipality thought it advisable to pull down 
the church of Saint Evremont, one of the most 
beautiful specimens of the architecture of the 
twelfth century. 

The people of Nogent-les-Vierges are not bar- 



124 The Spell of the Heart of France 

barians: they have preserved their church. It 
is not as pure in style as that of Saint Evremont. 
But its belfry — terribly restored — is adorned 
with original details. The rectangular choir, 
which the thirteenth century added to the Roman- 
esque nave, possesses a rare elegance, with its 
slender pillars. What a diversity there is in the 
creations of Gothic architecture! How inventions 
in construction permitted infinite variation in the 
plans of churches! It is only by thus traversing 
the countrysides of France that one can admire 
the abundant imagination of the builders of the 
thirteenth century. There are many churches, 
especially in the north, which, hke that of Nogent- 
les-Vierges, possess a choir terminated by a flat 
wall. But the type is diversified from edifice to 
edifice. Open a manual of archaeology; take the 
most recent and the most complete of all, that of 
M. Enlart, and you will observe what diSiculty 
the author has in classing and characterizing 
such work, after the last years of the twelfth 
century. At no other period was architecture so 
profoundly individual an art. We may say that 
every building was then original, not only in the 
details, but especially in the plan. 

I have written that the people of Nogent-les- 
Vierges were not barbarians, but I am on the 
point of taking it back, when I think of a sort of 



The Valley of the Oise US 

panoramic Calvary which they have installed in 
their beautiful church. Let them look at this 
picture which might seem beautiful to a Kanaka: 
then let them look at the two beautiful bas-rehefs 
of the fifteenth century which are placed at the 
extremity of the nave, and let them blush! 

A little farther on, the church of Villers-Saint- 
Paul also possesses a Romanesque nave on low, 
squat pillars, and a Gothic choir whose columns 
expand into wide branches of stone. This choir 
is square, like that of Nogent-les-Vierges. The 
two villages are only a league apart; without 
doubt only a few years separated the two buildings, 
yet it will always be impossible for us to confoimd 
these two churches in our memorj^! 

Rieux also had its Romanesque nave and its 
Gothic choir. The nave has been made into a 
schoolhouse. As to the choir, it is being restored, 
but the orientation of the altar is being changed 
in the process, so that the width of the choir 
becomes the length of the church. And they are 
executing this lovely transformation without any 
thought of the ancient plans, or any more respect 
for the wishes of the dead who, buried under the 
pavement of the sanctuary, will no longer occupy 
the position with respect to the altar iu which 
they had wished to rest forever. 

On the left bank of the Oise, Pont-Sainte- 



126 The Spell of the Heart of France 

Maxence: a pointed-arched church of the Renais- 
sance, heavy, massive. This type of architecture, 
which has produced so many elegant works in 
Normandy, has been less happy in the Isle of 
France. Pontpoint : a Romanesque nave, a pointed 
choir, at the end of which they have preserved 
an old apse of the eleventh century, and these 
patchings are delightful! We salute at the portal 
of the church of Verberie an adorable statue of 
the Virgin. We cross back to the right bank of the 
Oise to admire the stone steeple of Venette, 
pleasingly planted on the pedestal of a Romanesque 
tower : we reach Compiegne. 

Compiegne has a beautiful chateau which 
everybody knows, and Compiegne is a charming 
town which many sojourners do not know. 
More than one traveler has gone through it without 
ever having seen the chapel of the ancient H6tel- 
Dieu, whose grand reredos of carved wood is one 
of the most brilliant masterpieces of the French 
sculpture of the seventeenth century. 

Compiegne possesses a historical society, which 
shows much zeal in causing the preservation of the 
appearance and the monuments of the old town. 
Let us praise in passing the efforts of these worthy 
men: we must not lose a chance for exalting the 
good and saying evil of the wicked. On one 




From a drawing by Blanche McManus 

NAPOLEON'S BEDCHAMBER, CHATEAU DE COMPIBGNB 



The Valley of the Oise 127 

occasion this historical society intervened to 
prevent that, under pretext of straightening a 
line, the remnants of an old bastion should be 
destroyed because they injured, it was said, the 
beautiful perspective of the subprefecture. It 
also undertook the defense of the old tower called 
the Tower of Joan of Arc, and succeeded in saving 
this venerable moniunent. Alas, it did not succeed 
in protecting the bridge of Compiegne against the 
engineers who wrapped it up in an iron apron, 
under pretext of facilitating traffic. . . . Yes, 
the traffic of the bridge of Compiegne! 

From belfry to belfry, we continue our route 
toward Noyon. 

At the junction of the Aisne, in a pleasing 
landscape, the church of Choisy-au-Bac seems to 
watch over the tombs of a little cemetery filled 
with flowers. It is Romanesque, fairly well 
restored, and charmingly picturesque. 

At Longueil-sous-Thourotte, the poor old church 
is about to disappear. By its side they have built 
a grand new church, a copy of twelfth-century 
architecture. Was it worth while to demolish 
the modest and venerable edifice of earlier days? 
Could it not be preserved beside the proud modern 
construction, even if it were tottering and dilapi- 
dated? It contained beautiful funeral slabs of the 



128 The Spell of the Heart of Prance 

Renaissance, which are going to be exiled, no 
one knows where; it contained, above all, superb 
stained glass of the thirteenth century. Two 
windows have been placed in the new church; 
but there remains a third, and there remain 
also remarkable monochromatic frescoes. What 
is going to be done with these precious remnants? 
They have not been listed as national treasures. 

. . . Tomorrow, perhaps, they will go to decorate 
the dining room of a Chicago millionaire: what a 
disgrace! And all the windows of the new church 
are adorned with stained glass whose banal horror 
makes the magnificence of these ancient windows 
apparent to every eye! 

The church of Thourotte — it is of the twelfth 
century, but has lost much of its character — 
contains a fine altar screen of gilded wood, repre- 
senting the different scenes of the Passion. It 
is said to be Flemish work; judging by the types 
of certain personages, this might be doubted; 
but the shutters which close upon the screen bear 
paintings whose origin is not in the least doubtful. 
Poor paintings, whose restoration was confided 
by a too-zealous curate to a pitiable dauber! 
Now, the Commission of Historic Monuments 
has listed the beautiful sculptures and has put 
them under glass: the effect of this is abominable, 
but we Uve among barbarians and second-hand 



The Valley of the Oise 129 

dealers, and we are actually forced to put our 
works of art under lock and key to defend them. 
As for the painted shutters, they are hung up on 
the wall: a few were spared by the dauber. In 
the same church we may still see two beautiful 
altars supported by torsos of the seventeenth 
century. How many beautiful works of art still 
remain in our Httle churches of France, in spite 
of revolutions and dealers in antiques! 

The Cistercian abbey of Ourscamp is now a 
cotton spinning miU. Behind a magnificent iron 
fence stretch vast buildings of the seventeenth 
century. In the center rises a grand pavihon. 
We pass through an open door between the high 
columns which support the balcony of the upper 
story, and suddenly discover that this immense 
construction is a mere veneer to hide the old church 
of the monastery. Of the nave there is no longer 
anything remaining; but a httle farther on, in the 
midst of the park, the choir still lifts its arches of 
magnificently pure architecture. The roof has 
fallen, but the columns and the walls stiU stand. 
It is a picture like that of the church of Long- 
pont, in the forest of Villers-Cotterets. (There is 
also great similarity between the architecture of 
Longpont and that of Ourscamp.) It seems that 
the intimate beauty of Gothic art is better revealed 
to us when we thus discover the ruin of one of its 



130 The Spell of the Heart of Prance 

masterpieces among the trunks and branches of 
trees; we then can better feel the hving grace of its 
columns and the freedom of its arches. . . . There 
is so much truth in this admirable page from the 
G^nie du christianisme: "The forests of the Gauls 
have passed in their turn into the temples of our 
fathers, and our forests of oak have thus main- 
tained their sacred origin. These vaults carved 
into foliage, these jambs which support the walls 
and end suddenly hke broken trunks, the coolness 
of the vaults, the darknesses of the sanctuary, the 
obscure wings, the secret passages, the lowly 
doorways, all retrace the labyrinths of the woods 
in the Gothic church: everything makes us feel 
in it religious horror, mysteries and divinity, etc. 
..." The centuries have accomplished their 
work, and, in the ruins of the edifice, which is 
surrounded and invaded by the verdure of the 
forest, we recognize still better what art learns from 
nature. (Note 13.) 

Of the old abbey, there still remains a superb 
hall with Gothic vaults and a triple nave. It is 
called the ''HaU of the Dead," because it is said 
that the bodies of the monks were placed there 
for two days before the funeral. So great a room 
for this use? Was it not rather the chapter 
room of the monastery? 

I will say nothing of Noyon today. On another 




CHURCH OP TRACY-LE-VAL 



The Valley of the Oise 131 

occasion we will return to this lovable and silent 
town, which is adorned with one of the most 
perfect religious edifices of our country. 

Upon the return trip, in the forest and valleys 
adjacent to the valley of the Oise, the obedient 
auto stopped before many other exquisite 
churches. 

The belfry of Tracy-le-Val is one of the pearls 
of French art. The tower rests upon a square sub- 
basement; when it has reached the height of the 
apse, two long, narrow windows open upon each 
side, framed by little columns of adorably fine work- 
manship, and monsters and grotesques grimace on 
all sides under the arches and upon the capitals. 
Above these strange details, the tower suddenly 
becomes octagonal, but, to mask the abrupt 
change in the architectural scheme, statues with 
outstretched wings are placed at the four angles. 
A conical tower of stone crowns this strange 
belfry, twice admirable, by the richness of its 
decoration and by the grace of its proportions. 

Saint-Jean-aux-Bois, in the midst of the forest 
of Compiegne, is a church of the twelfth century 
which the restorers have rebuilt. Perhaps it will 
still interest a few archaeologists by the origi- 
nality of its plan: designed in the form of a Latin 
cross, its crossarms have double bays, like the 



132 The Spell of the Heart of France 

nave; but this singularity of construction is the 
only merit which the church retains today: it is 
clean, new, frozen and dead, 

Morienval, with its three towers, its triple nave, 
and its ambulatory, is a beautiful church. In 
the interminable controversies which have raged 
over the date and the place of the origin of the 
Gothic style, Morienval has been cited a hundred 
times, and it has been much discussed because of 
its ambulatory, which is vaulted with pointed 
arches and which certain historians affirm to have 
been built in the middle of the eleventh 
century. ... I do not know. But what I know 
well, is that, in future controversies, one will do 
well to hold to the texts and to the drawings, and 
not to attempt to reason from the monument 
itself; for this exists no longer, or at least it is 
restored, which amoimts to the same thing. Yes, 
they have restored the ambulatory of Morienval, 
and they have not half restored it, I can assure 
you. For they have completely recarved certain 
capitals. ... It is truly a singular spectacle to see 
in the twentieth century so many stone carvers 
occupied, some in producing Romanesque, others 
Gothic, and still others classical architectin-e. 
It is also diverting to think of the mistakes into 
which future archaeologists will fall, led astray by 
all these copies. But, in spite of all, as it is the 



The Valley of the Ois e 133 

old monuments which pay for these debauches of 
sculpture, as it is at the expense of their conser- 
vation that this fury of restoration is exercised, 
we would willingly renounce these ironical joys. 
Oh, if the restorers would only consecrate each 
year to the placing of tiles or slates the sums which 
they squander in having capitals recarved! 

Since the fancy of this archaeological excursion 
has taken me into the valley of the Authonne, 
a pretty name for a pretty brook, I desire to see 
that chateau of Vez which its owner, M. Dru, 
recently bequeathed to the nation. It is a magnifi- 
cent fortress on the summit of a wooded hill. 
The donjon and the encircling wall have been 
skillfully restored. Of the main body of the build- 
ing, of which only ruins remain, a part only was 
rebuilt by M. Dru. . . . Will the nation accept 
the legacy? I hope so, because it appears that 
M. Dru left a sum sufficient to finish the work. This 
sort of archaeological restitution seems to me very 
unnecessary; it would be far better to leave such 
things to theatrical scene builders. But it is not 
necessary to discourage the worthy who diminish 
the profits of the house wreckers by bequeathing 
their castles to the public. 

Irony of geographical names! At the foot of the 
hill which sustains the donjon of Vez, we see, in 
the midst of the fields, a Gothic church of the 



134 The Spell of the Heart of France 

flamboyant period, remnant of a Premonstraten- 
sian monastery. It is now used as a farmstead. 
I consult my map to know the name of the ham- 
let: it is called Lieu-Restaure (Restored Place). 

I took the road back to Paris through the great 
plains of Valois, overlooked by the sublime spire 
of the cathedral of Senhs. 




INTERIOR OF THE CHURCH OF GALLARDON 



IX 

GALLARDON 

GALLARDON, a town of the region of 
Chartres, is built upon the spur formed by 
the valleys of the Ocre and the Voise, two 
of those narrow and sinuous ravines, clothed with 
trembling alders and poplars, which traverse the 
immense plateau of La Beauce. The houses rise, 
stage above stage, on the side of the hill ; then, at 
the summit of the slope, commences the endless 
plain, the ocean of harvests, dotted with the whirl- 
ing iron arms of water-pumping windmills, where 
th6 towers of the cathedral of Chartres are dimly 
seen above the horizon. Gallardon was formerly a 
strong defensive position, and the ruin of its old 
donjon, "the shoulder of Gallardon," still sketches 
curious outlines against the sky. Gallardon pos- 
sesses a remarkable church, whose choir is a marvel 
of elegance, and whose nave is covered with a 
beautiful vault of painted wood. It also boasts of 
a beautiful Renaissance house. . . . Finally, it is 
noted for the richness of its fields and above aU for 
the excellence of its beans. 

135 



136 The Spell of the Heart of Prance 

But, today, neglecting the picturesque, archseo- 

logical and horticultural merits of Gallardon, I 

wish to tell the story of a singular personage who 

was born in this tiny village of La Beauce, Thomas 

Ignatius Martin, a visionary laborer, known under 

the name of Martin of Gallardon. (Note 14.) 
******* 

In 1816, the White Terror reigned in La Beauce 
as in other places. Gallardon had not escaped the 
fever which torments the least village of France 
on the morrow of every revolution. Conquered 
and furious, the Liberals met in the hall of an inn 
to exchange their regrets and their rancors; with 
airs of bravado they evoked the memories of the 
Revolution and the glories of the Empire. Oppo- 
site them, and in opposition to them, the Royahst 
Committee celebrated the victory of its party and 
exploited it. It annoyed and threatened its 
adversaries, bombarded the Chamber with peti- 
tions, and the ministers with denunciations. It 
was the appointed hour for all reprisals, all 
enthusiasms and all creduHties. 

Thomas Ignatius Martin was born at Gallardon 
of a family of small farmers who had been known 
there from time immemorial. He was thirty-three 
years old and the father of four children. He was 
a robust, simple, upright, easy-going and open- 
hearted citizen. In the midst of aroused passions 



Gallardon '' 137 



he had never mixed in political affairs. On the 
testimony of the mayor of Gallardon, ''the Revo- 
lution always seemed to displease him, especially 
on account of the disorders which it caused, in 
which he never took part. He remained tranquil 
in all these events, even on the 20th of March, 
when Bonaparte returned; he seemed, however, to 
be angry at the banishment of the King; but he 
also took tranquilly the return of the King in the 
month of July, rejoicing at it, but without osten- 
tation." In short, he was a wise man. He ful- 
filled his religious duties exactly, but without 
fervor, went to mass, kept Lent, read nothing but 
his prayer book and when, passing by his fields, 
the curate asked of him: ''How goes the work?" 
he replied: "Much obliged, M. Cure, it goes well." 
He was never seen at the tavern. 

Now, on February 15, 1816, about half-past 
two in the afternoon, Thomas was in his fields 
busy in spreading manure on his land, when he 
suddenly saw an unknown man appear before him. 
This man, who appeared to be about five feet 
two inches high, was slim of figure, with a taper- 
ing, delicate and very white face ; he was enveloped 
to his feet in a long frock coat of blonde color, 
was shod with boots tied with strings, and wore 
a high silk hat. He said to Martin in a very 
gentle voice: 



138 The Spell of the Heart of France 

''It is necessary that you should go to see the 
King; that you should say to him that his life 
is in danger, as well as that of the princes; that 
evil men are stiU attempting to overturn the 
government; that several writings or letters are 
already in circulation in some provinces of his 
States on this subject; that it is necessary that 
he shall have an exact and general watch kept in 
all his States, and especially in the capital; that 
it is also necessary that he should exalt the day of 
the Lord, that it may be kept holy; that this 
holy day is misused by a great portion of his peo- 
ple; that it is necessary that he shall cause public 
works to stop on that day; that he shall cause 
public prayers to be ordered for the conversion 
of the people; that he shall exhort them to peni- 
tence; that he shall abohsh and annihilate all the 
disorders which are committed on all the days 
which precede the holy forty days of Lent: that 
if he does not do all these things, France will fall 
into new evils. It is necessary that the King 
should behave towards his people as a father to 
his child who deserves to be punished; that he 
shall punish a small number of the most culpable 
among them to intimidate the others. If the King 
does not do what is said, there will be made so 
great a hole in his crown that this will bring him 
entirely to ruin," 



G-allardon 139 



To this discourse Martin replied very judi- 
ciously: ''But you can certainly go away and find 
others than me to undertake such a commission 
as that." ''No/' replied the unknown, "it is 
you who shall go." Martin replied still more 
judiciously: "But since you know it so well, you 
can indeed go yourself to find the King and say 
all that to him; why do you address yourself to 
a poor man like me, who does not know how to 
explain himself?" The unknown showed himself 
inflexible: "It is not I," said he, "who shall go, 
it will be you; pay attention to what I say to you, 
for you shall do all that I command you." Then 
his feet appeared to lift from the earth, his head 
to sink, his body to shrink, and the apparition 
disappeared. A mysterious force prevented Mar- 
tin from quitting his field and made him finish 
his work much more rapidly than was usual. 

When he returned to Gallardon, Martin went 
to his priest to relate the adventure to him. The 
curate, who was called M. Laperruque, advised 
him to eat, drink and sleep well, without worrying 
about this chimera. But, on the following day, 
the unknown presented himseK on several occa- 
sions before the more and more frightened peasant, 
and repeated to him the order to go and find the 
King. 

Martin, on the advice of the curate, visited the 



140 The Spell of the Heart of France 

Bishop of Versailles, who questioned him and 
sent him back to Gallardon. A new apparition: 
the unknown declares that he will not tell his 
name, that he is sent from heaven, and that if 
Martin is chosen above all to speak to Louis 
XVIII, ''it is to lower pride." From this day he 
does not cease to lecture Martin: ''It is not neces- 
sary to believe that it is by the will of men that 
the usurper came last year, it is to punish 
France. . . . France is in a state of delirium: it 
shall be delivered to all sorts of evils. ..." At 
the same time he warned him "that he would be 
led before the King, that he would discover to 
him the secret things of the period of his exile, but 
that the knowledge of them would only be given 
to him at the moment when he would be intro- 
duced into the King's presence." Whether he 
cultivates his fields, or whether he remains in the 
barn to thresh his wheat, the unfortunate farmer 
always finds himself in the presence of the haunting 
apparition. 

Meanwhile, the curate Laperruque corresponds 
with the Bishop of Versailles, who corresponds 
with the Minister of Police. The latter requests 
the prefect of Eure-et-Loir to verify "if these 
apparitions, said to be miraculous, were not 
rather a flight of the imagination of Martin, a 
veritable illusion of his exalted spirit; or if possibly 




NOTRE DAME DE CHARTRES 



Gallardon 141 



the pretended apparition, or perhaps Martin him- 
self, ought not to be severely questioned by the 
pohce and then turned over to the courts." 

Warned by the unknown that he is soon going 
to appear ''before the first magistrate of his 
arrondissement," Martin repairs to Chartres with 
his curate, and goes to see the prefect; he relates 
to him his visions, announces himseK as ready to 
repeat the story of them to the Minister of Police 
and to the King himself, and on March 7, at 
five o'clock in the morning, departs from Chartres 
by the diligence, in the company of M. Andr6, 
lieutenant of gendarmes. They both arrive at 
Paris at half-past five and take rooms at the 
H6tel de Calais, Rue Montmartre. 

On the next morning, the Ueutenant of gen- 
darmes takes his man to the General Pohce Head- 
quarters. In the courtyard, the unknown appears 
again to Martin: ''You are going," says he, "to 
be questioned in several ways; have neither fear 
nor inquietude, but tell the things as they are." 
It is nine o'clock; the minister, M. Decazes, has 
not yet arisen. A secretary makes Martin undergo 
a preliminary interrogatory. The latter allows 
himself to be neither intimidated nor disconcerted. 
Then he is introduced into the private room of the 
minister, to whom he relates again the series of 
apparitions, and describes the countenance and 



142 The Spell of the Heart of France 

the clothing of the unknown. ''Well/' the minis- 
ter then says to him, ''you will see him no more, 
for I am going to have you arrested and taken to 
prison." This news leaves Martin very incredu- 
lous. . . . And, having returned to the Hotel de 
Calais, he again hears the unknown assure him 
that the police have no power over him, and that 
it is high time to warn the King. 

The minister begins to be embarrassed. It is 
evident that the words of the unknown are not 
unhke — even to style — the discourses uttered 
by M. de Marcellus, M. de Chateaubriand, the 
ultras who meet every evening in the Rue Therese, 
in the salon of M. Piet, in short, all the enemies of 
M. Decazes. On the other hand, the simplicity 
of Martin, his air of frankness, the concordance 
of his stories, all preclude the idea of an imposture. 
Could this peasant, then, be playing a part in 
some political machination? But it is impossible 
to discover who could be the instigators of the 
mystification. M. Decazes, to get to the bottom 
of the affair, then orders Pinel, physician in chief 
of the Salpetriere, to repair to the Hotel de Calais 
and examine the individual in question. After a 
long conversation, Pinel decides that Martin is 
afflicted with an "intermittent alienation"; then 
he reflects and writes to the minister that the 
wisest course is to take the subject to Charenton 



Gallardon 143 



for a few days, in order that it may be possible 
to observe him and pronounce upon his case. 

Meanwhile, the unknown continues to appear 
to Martin and to announce to him the worst 
catastrophes. Suddenly, on March 10, he decides 
to reveal his name: ''I had told you that my name 
would remain unknown; but, since incredulity is 
so great, it is necessary that I discover my name 
to you; I am the Archangel Raphael, an angel 
very celebrated at the throne of God; I have 
received the power to strike France with all sorts 
of plagues." And he adds that peace will not 
return to France before the year 1840. These 
words terrify Martin. 

- Three days later, the lieutenant of gendarmes 
causes him to enter a hired carriage and, under 
pretext of a drive, conducts him to Charenton. 
Martin, however, displays no astonishment at 
this: the supernatural voice has warned him of it. 

Martin remained about three weeks at Charen- 
ton, observed and studied very closely by Doctor 
Royer-CoUard, chief physician of the hospital. 
He set down his observations and his conclusions 
in a long report, which he signed with Pinel. 
It is from this document that I have just related 
the first visions of Martin. 

This report gives us a high idea of the prudence, 



144 The Spell of the Heart of France 

the method and the scruples of the physicians 
who prepared it. As we read these clear and 
judicious pages, we are obliged to recognize that 
if the science of mental maladies has made httle 
progress since 1816, the speciahsts resort to bold- 
ness of diagnosis and obscurities of language 
which Pinel and Royer-CoUard knew nothing of. 
These two doctors knew that their work would 
pass under the King's eyes, and they doubtless put 
particular care into it. Nevertheless, not one of 
our most famous alienists would consent today to 
sign such an avowal of uncertainty, nor, above all, 
to express his doubts and reserves in a fashion as 
limpid and as intelhgible, without once dissimulat- 
ing by a barbarous jargon the fragihty of his 
knowledge. 

The doctors begin by an exposition of the facts, 
the apparitions of the archangel, the confidences 
of Martin to his curate, his trip to Paris and his 
arrival at Charenton. They report that after 
having submitted him to a detailed examination, 
they had found in him no sign of malady nor any 
symptom of derangement of mind: he is sound of 
body, reasons well, manifests neither overexcite- 
ment nor violence; he accepts his internment with 
resignation and asks only that he be permitted 
to accomplish his mission, for he continues to 
receive the visits and the admonitions of the 



Grallardon 145 



archangel. We shall see that he finally obtained 
entry to the presence of the King. But let us see 
first, according to expert medical testimony, 
whether Martin was an impostor or an illuminate. 

''If Martin is an impostor," say the doctors, 
"he can have become so only in one of two ways: 
either by imagining his r6le alone and executing it 
without any outside assistance, or by obeying 
the influence of other persons more enlightened 
than himself and by receiving their counsel and 
their instruction." 

The physicians discard the first hypothesis; 
what they themselves have observed of the charac- 
ter of Martin and what they have learned through 
information brought from Gallardon, prevents 
their befieving in trickery. ''Martin was the last 
man in the world whom one would suspect of 
forming a project such as this and of cleverly bring- 
ing together all the parties to it; he did not have 
the religious and political acquaintances which 
this requires, and he would never have been able 
to compose by himself alone the discourses which 
he assures us were addressed to him; but even 
supposing, contrary to all probability, that he 
might have been capable of conceiving such a 
plan, his skill would have come to an end at the 
first difficulty of execution. Let us imagine him 
in this contingency face to face with the different 



146 The Spell of the Heart of France 

persons who have questioned him; let one oppose 
his inexperience to their penetration, his ignorance 
to the artifice of their questions, his timidity to 
the impression of respect which the exercise of 
authority always calls forth, and let one ask 
one's seK if he would not have been disconcerted a 
score of times and fallen into the traps which were 
laid for him in all directions. Let us add that, 
if he had only been an adroit rogue, he would have 
infalhbly sought to turn this roguery to his own 
profit by making it a means of fortune or of credit. 
Now, he has not dreamed for a single instant of 
taking advantage of the extraordinary things 
which happened to him; he has not even been 
willing to accept a small sum of money which was 
offered him for his traveling expenses; he has 
never worked to acquire partisans, and finally, 
he has retin-ned to his village as simple and with 
as little pretension as before. Has one ever seen 
rogues so disinterested?" 

Must we believe that Martin is not the sole 
author of the imposture and that he was guided 
by outside advice? The physicians combat 
equally this hypothesis which would have made 
policemen smile in the beginning. Here is their 
reasoning, and it is very strong: ''To admit this 
second hypothesis, it is necessary to admit also 
that a certain number of men, attached to some 



Gallardon 147 



political or religious faction and knowing Martin 
directly or indirectly, should have entered into 
close relations with him at some time before Janu- 
ary 15, and have continued these relations from 
January 15 up to the time of Martin's removal to 
Paris, and also in Paris itself, during the sojourn 
which he made there, and even at Charenton dur- 
ing the three weeks which he passed there. . . . 
Without these precautions, Martin, abandoned 
to himself and now obedient only to vague and 
insufficient guidance, would not have been able 
to escape the perils which surrounded him. . . . 
Previous to January 15, Martin associated only 
with his family or the people of his village; he has 
never been known to have had any acquaintance 
or association with persons of a higher class; con- 
sequently he has not had them; for in a village 
nothing remains secret; every one knows what 
his neighbor is doing. From January 15 up to the 
time of his removal to Paris, the most authentic 
reports certify that he has seen only his curate, 
the Bishop of Versailles and the prefect of Eure- 
et-Loir, and we know exactly what passed between 
them and Martin. In the journey from Gallardon 
to Paris, and during the stay which he made in 
that city, Martin was accompanied by an officer 
of gendarmes who left him neither by day nor by 
night, and who affirms that, with the exception 



148 The Spell of the Heart of France 

of M. Pinel, no one at all has had an interview 
with him. As to Charenton, we certify that he 
there met only three strangers: one was the 
commandant and the two others [M. Sosth^ne de 
La Rochefoucauld and the Abbe Dulondel, sent 
by the Archbishop of Rheims, to whom the King 
had entrusted the care and the solution of the 
Martin affair], discreet persons, incapable of 
becoming the instruments of trickery; that all 
three have had communication with Martin only 
in the presence of the director, and that they were 
rigorously restricted to addressing a few questions 
to him without making any kind of insinua- 
tion. . . . Martin talked of his visions neither 
to the patients, nor to the attendants, nor to the 
gardeners. Besides, no letter, no advice, had 
reached him from outside. . . ." Then Martin 
is neither an impostor nor an accomplice in an 
imposture. He thus actually experienced the sen- 
sations which he reports. 

Having established the sincerity of Martin, 
the physicians asked themselves how his intellec- 
tual condition should be characterized. 

Martin is the puppet of hallucinations. There- 
fore his affection approaches insanity in certain 
characteristics. ''It is for this reason," adds 
Royer-CoUard, "that M. Pinel and myself did 
not hesitate at first sight to regard this affection 



Gallardon 149 



as a particular kind of insanity, and it is probable 
that any other physician would have thought 
as we do on this point. But if Martin's affection 
approaches insanity in some particulars, it also dif- 
fers from it in important and basic respects. . . ." 
What were they? ''In the case of ordinary mental 
patients, the hallucination of the senses is almost 
always led up to and brought on by causes which 
have acted strongly upon their imagination, or 
disturbed more or less the exercise of their 
intellectual faculties; it never manifests itself 
without a special concentration of efforts of the 
attention or the imagination upon a single idea 
or upon a particular series of ideas, at least in the 
period which immediately precedes the vision." 
Now, in Martin's case, there is nothing hke this. 
He has rehgious visions, although he had a mind 
Httle inclined to the mystic and was even a rather 
lukewarm Christian. His visions relate to politics, 
yet he was a stranger to the passions of his fellow 
citizens and did not read the newspapers. Among 
ordinary insane, visions are always accompanied 
by a certain ecstatic exaltation which gives the 
seer the attitude of the inspired, of the prophet, 
and never permit him to relate his visions with 
calmness and tranquilUty. Now Martin remains 
constantly the same. He confides his visions only 
to his superiors, he appears more annoyed than 



150 The Spell of the Heart of France 

glorified by them, he relates them with simplicity; 
he is not turned for one instant from his habitual 
occupations. Singular coincidences justified cer- 
tain of the prophecies of Martin: "If it is necessary 
to make use of the testimony of the officer of 
gendarmes who accompanied him, Martin an- 
nounced to him in the morning the visit which 
M. Pinel was to make in the afternoon, without 
there being any way in which he could learn of 
this. . . . We are equally assured that he had 
actually written to his brother under date of 
March 12, to warn him that the authorities were 
going to have information collected in his neigh- 
borhood, in regard to the persons with whom he 
habitually associated there, while the letter by 
which these inquiries were ordered was not written 
until the sixteenth of the same month. ..." 
Pinel and Royer-Collard willingly admit that there 
exist "incontestable occurrences of previsions and 
presentiments which were later realized by the 
event." But what appears not less certain "is 
that these occurrences are met with only in the 
case of persons who enjoy all their faculties and 
never among the mentally afflicted. This is a 
side of our nature which remains inexplicable to 
us even to this day and which will probably long 
escape our researches." Finally, Martin is dis- 
tinguished by his excellent health from other 



Gallardon 151 



hallucinate insane, who are always the victims of 
physical troubles. 

What can then be the nature of this condition, 
so individual and so different from insanity asit 
is usually observed? 

I have had to abridge this long scientific dis- 
cussion, but I will copy the conclusions of the 
report verbatim: 

"We here find ourselves arrested by important 
considerations. On the one hand, it very often 
happens that true insanity shows itself at first 
only by indefinite symptoms and takes its real 
form and its complete development only at a 
period more or less remote from its first appear- 
ance; on the other hand, the methods of classifi- 
cation applied even to this day in medicine are 
still very imperfect, and lack much of that degree 
of precision which seems to belong especially to 
the other physical sciences. . . . The external 
and tangible properties of objects are the only 
ones which receive the attention of the doctor: 
it is by the examination of these that he regulates 
his ministry, and intellectual facts are almost 
always surrounded with so many obscurities that 
it is extremely difficult to assert rigorously exact 
analogies or differences. 

"If these reflections are true, in general, they 
are especially so with respect to the facts observed 



152 The Spell of the Heart of France 

in Martin's case, and the mere statement of these 
facts furnishes a sufficient proof of this. We conse- 
quently think that Martin's condition may change. 
It would be rash to pronounce upon this condition 
before the lapse of a year, and until then we think 
it is proper that we should abstain from judging 
him. We also think that this condition, as we 
have observed it, cannot, taking into considera- 
tion the present imperfection of our knowledge, 
be characterized in a precise manner, and that 
even if we suppose that it would always remain the 
same, it would still be necessary to wait, in order 
to determine its nature, until facts of the same 
kind, observed and recorded with care, should 
have been discovered in sufficient quantity to 
spread new light upon this still obscure portion 
of our knowledge." 

Consequently, Pinel and Royer-CoUard declare 
that they have found it necessary to refrain from 
giving any treatment, they decide that the min- 
ister has done "an act of justice and humanity" 
in returning Martin to his family, and request 
that, during a period of considerable duration, he 
should be the subject of "enlightened observation." 

When Louis XVIII decided to summon Martin 
to the Tuileries, he had not yet read this report, 
which was not drawn up until several days later. 



Gallardon 153 



But M. Decazes had communicated to him the 
observations of the physicians, and the Arch- 
bishop of Rheims in hke manner the impressions 
of his emissary, Abbe Dulondel. To what senti- 
ment did he respond in summoning Martin? 
Probably to simple curiosity. ''Infected with his 
century, it is to be feared that religion was for 
the Very Christian king' only an elixir suitable 
for the amalgamation of the drugs of which roy- 
alty is composed." (This admirable formula is 
by Chateaubriand.) 

On April 2, Martin was conducted from Charen- 
ton to poUce headquarters. The minister an- 
nounced to him that he was about to be taken 
to see the King, then went into a neighboring 
room. Then Martin beheld the archangel, and 
heard these words: ''You are going to speak to 
the King and you will be alone with him; have no 
fear in appearing before the King because of 
what you have to say to him." A carriage was 
ready. But the peasant preferred to go to the 
Tuileries on foot, and the first gentleman in 
waiting introduced him into the King's apartment. 
* ****** 

Martin was in the presence of Louis XVIII; 
he was finally going to be able to acquit himself 
of his mission and to transmit to the King the 
warnings of the archangel. 



154 The Spell of the Heart of Prance 

He himself reported this interview to Doctor 
Royer-CoUard; then, after returning to Gallardon, 
he made a more detailed statement to his cm^ate, 
M. Laperruque; the latter wrote down the rela- 
tion under the dictation of Martin, who certified 
to its exactness, and the manuscript was sent to 
the prefecture of Chartres. We are obhged to 
confine ourselves to the statements of the laborer 
of La Beauce, for the scene had no witness. To 
the Duchess of Berry, who questioned him about 
this personage, Louis XVIII merely repHed that 
Martin was a very worthy man who had given him 
good advice from which he hoped to he able to profit. 

Martin finds the King seated at a table ''upon 
which," he says, ''there were many papers and 
pens." He bows,Aat in hand. 

"Sire, I salute you." 

"Good morning, Martin." 

"You surely know, Sire, why I come." 

"Yes, I know that you have something to tell 
me and I have been told that it was something 
which you could say only to me. Be seated." 

Martin takes an armchair, sits down on the 
other side of the table, facing the King, and begins 
the conversation. 

"How is your health, Sire?" 

"I feel a little better than I have for some time; 
and how are you getting along?" 




„..-_.-.;..-..■ .^■j^^^^^'^cii^^^a^^'i^^imi^JiAi^s^ 



LOUIS XVIII 



Gallardon 155 



''I am very well, thank you." 
"What is the reason for your coming here?" 
And the seer commences to relate the admoni- 
tions and the prophecies of the archangel, all that 
had happened to him since January 15, the date 
of the first apparition. He adds: 

"It has also been said to me: One has betrayed 
the King and will betray him again; a man has 
escaped from prison; the King has been made 
to believe that this occurred through subtleness, 
skill and chance; but the thing is not so, it was 
premeditated; those who should have attempted 
to recapture him have neglected the matter; they 
have used in their task much slowness and negh- 
gence; they have caused him to be pursued when 
it was no longer possible to recapture him. I 
do not know who, they have not told me this." 
"I know him well, it is Lavalette." 
"It has been said to me that the King examines 
aU his employees, and especially his ministers." 
"Have they not named the persons to you?" 
"No, it has been said to me that it was easy for 
the King to know them; as for myself I do not 
know them." 

Martin pretends that, at this moment, Louis 
XVIII lifted his eyes to heaven, saying: "Ah! it is 
necessary!". . . and began to weep. Seeing 
which, he himself wept with the King to the end 



156 The Spell of the Heart of France 

of the interview. But his emotion does not prevent 
him from continuing. 

"It has also been said to me that the King 
should send into his provinces confidential officials 
to examine the administrations, without their 
being warned, without their even knowing that 
any one has been sent ; and you will be feared and 
respected by your subjects. It has been said to 
me that I should say to you that the King should 
remember his distress and his adversity in the 
time of his exile. The King has wept for France; 
there has been a time when the King no longer 
had any hope of returning hither, seeing France 
alHed with aU its neighbors." 

"Yes, there was a time when I no longer had 
any hope, seeing aU the States which no longer had 
any support." 

"God has not wished to destroy the King; he 
has recalled him into his States at the moment 
when he least expected it. At last the King has 
returned to his legitimate possessions. What are 
the acts of grace which have been returned for 
such a benefit? To punish France once more, 
the usurper has been drawn from his exile: it 
was not by the will of men, nor by the effect of 
chance that things were permitted thus. He 
returned without forces, without arms, without 
any defense being made against him. The legiti- 



Gallardon 157 



mate King was obliged to abandon his capital, 
and although he believed that he could still hold 
one city in his States, he was obliged to abandon 
it." 

"It is very true, I intended to remain at Lille." 

''When the usurper returned. . . [let us omit 
these historic matters]. The King again reentered 
his States. Where are the acts of grace which have 
been rendered to God for so glorious a miracle?" 

And Louis XVIII still weeps. ... Then Mar- 
tin recalls to him private facts regarding his exile. 

''Keep the secret of them," returns the King; 
"there will only he God, you and myself who will 
ever know that. . . . Has it not been said to you 
how it is necessary that I should conduct myself 
in governing France?" 

"No, he has made no mention to me of all 
that which is in the writings; the minister has 
the writings, as the things have been announced." 

"Has he not said to you that I have already 
sent forth decrees for all that you have spoken of 
to me?" 

"No, no one has mentioned it to me. ..." 

". . . If, however, he returns, you will ask 
him how it is necessary that I should conduct 
myself in governing." 

"It has been said to me that as soon as my 
commission to the King had been accompHshed, 



158 The Spell of the Heart of Prance 

I would never see anything more and that I 
would be undisturbed." 

Louis XVIII, perhaps less troubled than the 
worthy Martin beheves, continues to question 
the seer and to make him detail the circumstances 
under which certain of his previsions have been 
reaHzed. (The medical report informs of these 
curious coincidences.) Then, having listened to 
this story — "It is the same angel," he says, 
''who led the young Tobias to Rages and who 
made him marry her." He takes the right hand 
of Martin, that which the angel has pressed, 
and adds: 'Tray for me." 

"Surely, Sire, I and my family, as well as the 
curate of Gallardon, have always prayed that the 
affair should succeed." 

"How old is the curate of Gallardon? Has he 
been with you long?" 

"He is almost sixty; he is a worthy man; he has 
been with us about five or six years." 

"I commend myself to you, to him and to all 
your family." 

"Surely, Sire, it is much to be desired that you 
should remain; because if you should happen to 
depart or if some misfortune should come to you, 
we others would risk nothing also by going away, 
because there are also evil people in our country; 
they are not lacking." 



Gallardon 159 



After having renewed all the recommendations 
which the archangel had charged him to transmit 
to the King, Martin wishes Louis XVIII good 
health and asks his permission to return 'Ho the 
center of his family." 

''I have given orders to send you back there." 

"It has always been announced to me that no 
harm and no evil would happen to me." 

''Nor will anything happen to you; you will 
return there tomorrow; the minister is going to 
give you supper and a bedroom and papers to 
take you back." 

"But I would like it if I could return to 
Charenton to bid them good-by and to get a 
shirt which I left there." 

"Did it not trouble you to remain at Charenton? 
Did you get along well there?" 

"No trouble at all; and surely if I did not get 
along well there, I would not ask to go back." 

"WeU, since you desire to go back there, the 
minister will see that you are sent there at my 
expense." 

On the next day, having said farewell to the 
physicians at Charenton, Martin was taken back 
to Chartres, where the prefect of Eure-et-Loir 
recommended him to observe the greatest dis- 
cretion in regard to his adventure, then he returned 
to Gallardon. The curiosity seekers who had been 



160 The Spell of the Heart of France 

worried by his absence questioned him: ''When 
you have business," he rephed to them, "do you 
not go and do it? Well, I have been to do mine." 
And he went back to working in the fields. 

M. Decazes and the King himseh would doubt- 
less have preferred that the affair should remain 
secret; but it was soon bruited about. Troubled 
by the extraordinary events which had occurred 
in France in the last two years, imaginations were 
eager for the supernatural. On the other hand, 
the most violent members of the Royahst party 
did not find it inopportune that a miraculous voice 
had come to recall to the sovereign his duties as 
"very Christian king." 

Copies of the medical report and manuscript 
relations circulated among the pubhc. In the 
month of August, 1816, an Enghsh journal told 
the story of Martin. It was published in the 
Journal general de France in January, 1817. 
Finally pamphlets were printed. A "former 
magistrate" of Dijon told the stories of the 
visions which he considered miraculous; he accused 
the physicians of having "spread clouds over the 
truth of the revelations made to Martin," and 
compared the "divine" mission of the peasant to 
that of Joan of Arc. A priest. Abbe Wurtz, 
answered: for him, all the visions of the man of 



Gallardon 161 



Gallardon were only fables and illusions; they 
touched upon "the dignity of the most august 
family of the imiverse"; this pretended archangel 
was an enemy of the legitimate monarchy; upon 
the high hat of the unknown, there was perhaps 
a tricolored cockade under the white one! 

Finally, there appeared a work which subse- 
quently ran into twenty editions and spread the 
name of Martin of Gallardon throughout the 
whole of France: Relation Concerning the Events 
Which Happened to a Laborer of La Beauce in the 
Early Days of 1816. Its author was M. Silvy, 
''former magistrate," a man of great knowledge 
and of great piety; it was he who acquired the site 
of the ruins of Port-Royal and who perpetuated 
in the nineteenth century the spirit and the 
traditions of Jansenism. 

Written from the accounts of Martin himself 
and the reports of the director and the doctors 
of Charenton, this relation was accompanied by 
religious considerations. M. Silvy did not doubt 
that Thomas had been inspired by God through 
the mediation of an archangel. He interpreted 
in his own fashion the quite scientific prudence 
which the doctors had evidenced in refusing to 
give a definite opinion upon the case of the illumi- 
nate. A whole life of disinterestedness and charity 
proved the good faith of M. Silvy. But it is 



162 The Spell of the Heart of France 



sufficient, to eliminate the idea of a fraud, to 
know the mortifications and the disillusions which 
eventually overwhelmed this honest man, with- 
out affecting his belief. 

The police commenced to be stirred up. The 
peasant had been sent back to his plow with a 
recommendation to be silent; he was silent, but 
many others talked in his stead. It was impossible 
to act vigorously against him without becoming 
ridiculous, for the authorities had been forced 
to recognize his sincerity, and the report signed 
by the alienists would not allow a personage 
as inoffensive as he to be returned to Charen- 
ton. Measures were therefore taken against his 
historian, and the pohce prosecuted M. Silvy. 
The latter, who was a good Royalist, did not 
hesitate to declare that when the first edition of 
his pamphlet was sold out he would bind himself 
not to publish a second. This, for the moment, 
was all that M. Decazes could wish. The prosecu- 
tion was abandoned: the publicity of a trial was 
useless. 

The archangel Raphael had announced to Martin 
that ''when his commission had been carried out 
he would see nothing more." But, one day, the 
visions recommenced, to the great astonishment 
of all those who had beUeved in the first revela- 
tions. They admitted their embarrassment, and 



Gallardon 163 



made the conjecture that, after having received 
his inspirations from a messenger of light, Martin 
might now be visited by a messenger of darkness. 
Besides, the archangel did not appear again. 
Martin merely heard voices which announced to 
him the fall of the Bourbons and the dismember- 
ment of France; he saw hands tracing mysterious 
letters upon the walls; he predicted frightful 
catastrophes. The peasant had become prophet. 
His mental condition changed, in accordance with 
the prediction of Doctor Boyer-CoUard. People 
came to consult him from twenty leagues around. 
His poor cracked head put him at the mercy of 
all the plotters. 

He got mixed up in his revelations. We have 
seen that when he had been admitted to the 
presence of Louis XVIII, he had told the latter 
certain secrets of his exile and that the King had 
begged him to preserve this confidence. He was 
silent until the death of the King; but in 1825 he 
believed that he was able to speak and made this 
strange confidence to Due Mathieu de Mont- 
morency; one day Louis XVIII, then Count of 
Provence, had, while hunting, formed the design 
of killing Louis XVI, had even taken aim at his 
brother, and only chance had prevented the 
murder. It was this criminal thought that he, 
Martin, had recalled to the King. Certain 



164 The Spell of the Heart of France 

Royalists observed, not without foundation, that 
the historical knowledge of Martin was not very 
sound, and that it was not a question here of 
secrets of the period of exile. 

Martin did not trouble himself about these 
inconsistencies, and continued to prophesy. In 
1830 he announced the Revolution. On the Satur- 
day which preceded the ordinances, he heard a 
voice pronounce these words: ''The ax is raised, 
blood is going to flow." When Charles X in 
flight sent the Marquis de la Rochejacquelin to 
him from Rambouillet to question him as to the 
decision he must make, Martin repHed that aU 
was over and that it was necessary to leave France. 
On the next day, while hstening to the mass, he 
saw three red tears, three black tears, and three 
white tears, fall upon the chalice. The puzzle 
was solved by three words: Death, Mourning, Joy. 
The Joy seemed superfluous to the adherents of the 
legitimate monarchy. 

As to the famous "secret of the King," it was 
not long before he gave a new version of it. What 
he had revealed to Louis XVIII was the survival 
of Louis XVII. He had fallen into the hands of 
the partisans of Naundorff; he remained there 
untn his death. 

Shortly after the Revolution of 1830, there 
appeared an anonymous pamphlet entitled: The 



Gallardon 165 



Past and the Future Explained by Extraordinary 
Events. The author, who did not give his name, 
was Abbe Perrault, secretary of the Grand 
Almonry of France during the Restoration and 
member of a '' Committee of Researches Respect- 
ing Louis XVII." He made use of the revela- 
tions of Martin to demonstrate the illegitimacy of 
Louis XVIII and of Charles X, and Martin certi- 
fied to all of this with his name and his signature. 
(Note 15.) 

His former friends, whom he seemed to deny 
and whom he allowed to be defamed by the 
anonymous author of the pamphlet, were greatly 
grieved by this. I have before me a touching 
letter which was written him at that time by 
M. Silvy: ''May the Lord deign to give you eyes 
enlightened by the heart, to lead you back into 
the way of truth and sincerity. I cannot nor 
should I conceal from you that in separating 
yourself from it, as you seem to have done for 
several years, you do an infinite wrong to the 
special work with which you were charged by the 
angel of the Lord in the early months of 1816. 
You were then only a simple instrument in his 
hands, chosen by him as a good villager whom 
no one could suspect of belonging to any party, 
and unhappily there are many of these which di- 
vide the Church and the State. What a change 



166 The Spell of the Heart of France 

has happened in you! And what a difference 
between Thomas Martin as he showed himself in 
1816, and the same Thomas Martin in 1832! . . . 
Such is the evil fruit (the fruit of death) of this 
book (a lie) Du passe et de Vavenir, which confirms 
and must confirm more than ever different persons 
in unbeHef and in avoidance of the salutary advice 
which was given to all France by the mission which 
was confided to you (and which you have just 
dishonored). I have learned by myself and I am 
still certain from different testimonies that many 
of those who at first had believed in your first 
announcements no '' longer give to you the shadow 
of faith. I could even name to you, if you desire 
it, curates and honorable priests, vicars and even 
seminarists whom your new visions and their 
manifest falsity have totally disgusted with your 
previous revelations of 1816. . . ." This letter 
was not answered. The unfortunate Martin 
belonged henceforward to those who exploited 
his hallucinations. 

When, in the month of May, 1833, the clock- 
maker of Crossen, Due de Normandie, arrived 
at Paris to make himself known to his faithful, 
and when the sect commenced to be organized, 
the King and the Prophet met. The circumstances 
of this interview are not known precisely. Accord- 
ing to certain authors, Martin was taken to Saint 



Gallardon 167 



Arnoult, a village near Dourdan, to the home of 
the curate Appert, one of the most zealous and 
most devoted partisans of Naundorff ; there, in the 
presbytery, they presented him to a mysterious 
personage whom he immediately hailed as the true 
King of France, while the friends of Naundorff 
wept at the spectacle of the miracle. But the 
Viscount of Maricourt received from the mouth of 
Doctor Antoine Martin, son of Thomas Martin, a 
version according to which the scene may have 
been less solemn and less touching. In September, 
1833, on waking one morning, Martin said to his 
son: "At this moment there resides at Paris, 
with Madame de Rambaud, an unknown who 
calls himself King Louis XVII. My angel requires 
me to assure myself of his identity. Let us depart, 
my son." They departed. "Are you King Louis 
XVII?" Martin brusquely said to the stranger 
who was called Naundorff, when he was in his 
presence. "In that case, you have upon the 
shoulder, a half-ring, an indelible sign of your 
identity, marked there by the Queen your mother, 
a sleeping lion upon your breast and a dove on your 
thigh." Then Naundorff took the Martins, 
father and son, into "a discreet place prescribed 
by decency," and allowed them to see that these 
signs were marked upon his body. (Note 16.) 
From the day when Martin enrolled himseK in 



168 The Spell of the Heart of France 

Naundorff's party he leads a wandering Hfe, full 
of tribulations. He stays but rarely in his own 
village. He retires sometimes to Chartres, some- 
times to Versailles; for the voices order him 
incessantly to flee from his enemies and to hide 
himself. 

On April 12, 1834, he leaves Gallardon to make 
a retreat at Chartres. When leaving, he tells 
his wife that he well knows that something is 
going to happen to him, but that he confides aU 
to the will of God. He goes to see some honorable 
persons who are accustomed to receive him. But, 
when his novena is finished and he is about to 
return home, he is taken with frightful pains and 
dies before a doctor can be called. The honorable 
persons send for the widow, require her to send 
the body of the deceased to the home of a curate, 
her relation, and the latter is requested to declare 
that the death took place in his house. He refuses, 
and the body is transported to Gallardon. The 
strangeness of all these circumstances and the 
appearance of the body cause suspicion of poison- 
ing. Martin's family demand that the body shall 
be exhumed and an autopsy made. The doctors 
examine the body, but nothing more is heard of 
the affair. 

Thus ends very mysteriously the seer Thomas 
Martin of Gallardon. 



The Valley of the Seine, from the Terrace at 
St. Germain. 

From a water-color by Blanche McManus. 




X 

FROM MANTES TO LA ROCHE-GUYON 

"HEN we leave Mantes aiid follow the val- 
ley of the Seine, we leave behind us the 
charming town so well named Mantes- 
la-Jolie. At each turn of the road the sleeping 
waters reflect a heaven of blue, and trembhng 
verdure beneath: we dream of Corot. Through 
the gaps in the curtain formed by the poplars of 
the isles and the river banks, appears the white 
and smiling town, rising above its river, sweetly 
ordered below the towers of its fine and proud 
cathedral; we dream of the dehcate, precise and 
finished grace of those landscapes which form the 
background of fifteenth-century miniatures. 

Farther on, the aspect and the color of things 
change completely. Chalky escarpments close 
the horizon. Here commences the bluff, the 
abrupt bluff, which henceforth will overlook the 
bank of the Seine all the way to the channel, and 
which uninterruptedly will form the bastion of 
the Norman coast from Havre to Dieppe. The 
locality has already a sort of maritime flavor. On 

169 



170 The Spell of the Heart of France 

days of tempest, the clouds which flee from the 
northwest and rush across the great valley seem 
to be swept by the wuid of the open sea, the river 
is covered with little short, foamy waves, the air 
has a salty tang; and when Vetheuil, at the 
entrance of a tiny ravine, presents its low houses, 
its lanes tumbling toward the river bank, the high 
terrace and the Norman tower of its church, we 
might swear it was a fishing village. . . . 

This church of Vetheuil, which is said to have 
been commenced in the twelfth century, boasts of 
a fine belfry pierced with high lancet windows, 
which was built by Charles le Bel. It was recom- 
menced and completed in the sixteenth century by 
the Grappins, architects of Gisors. This family 
enriched the Vexin with precious buildings. The 
church of Vetheuil is the masterpiece of the most 
celebrated artist of the dynasty, Jean Grappin the 
elder. The Renaissance gave France few rehgious 
edifices more seducing and more harmonious than 
this. Nowhere were the new decoration and the 
classic styles more ingeniously applied to the 
transformation of an old church. The fagade of 
Gisors, which is also by Jean Grappin, seems to be 
less perfect in its art. Here the architectural 
effect is fight and finely balanced. Niches, con- 
soles, dais, balustrades, medallions, are charmingly 
invented. We still see the elegance and sobriety 



From Mantes to La Roche-Guyon 171 

of the earliest Renaissance; and yet there already 
appear, under the little porch, the H and the 
crescent. The Grappins had remained faithful to 
the traditions of taste and restraint, which were 
beginning to be lost by their contemporaries. 

Within, there are some pretty statues of earlier 
days, a fine Flemish altar screen with scenes from 
the Passion, and abominable colored statues of 
the most modern hideousness. 

We stop before a singular chapel, shut off by 
a vilely daubed wooden grating: to look at the 
rags and strange accessories which hang on the 
walls, we might at first take it for the property 
room of a theater. The paintings with which it is 
afilicted represent sepulchral things, thigh bones, 
tears and death's heads. The wall which faces the 
altar is covered with the portraits of a large num- 
ber of persons dressed in black, and covered with 
a sort of bonnet with tumed-up edges. This is 
the chapel of the Charity of Vetheuil, a lay brother- 
hood, whose function is to assist the dying and 
bury the dead. It doubtless dates from the Middle 
Ages, like other brotherhoods of the same type, 
which were formed in the Vexin, the remembrance 
of which is not yet totally lost at Mantes, at La 
Roche-Guyon, at Vetheuil, at Rosny. Like them 
also, it was restored by a bull of Gregory XIII at 
the end of the sixteenth century, as a result o^ the 



172 The Spell of the Heart of France 

frightful ravages of the plague at Milan. The 
Charities of Rosny, of La Roche and of Mantes 
have been dissolved. That of Vetheuil has sur- 
vived. The costumes of the brothers, great robes 
of black serge with a blue collar, are what we see 
hung on the chapel wall; and here are also the 
lanterns and the crosses which are carried before 
the bier, the bell of the bell-ringer, and his dal- 
matica sprinkled with skulls and bones, as well as 
the insignia of the chief banner bearer. (Note 17.) 
Each time that I have returned hither I have 
feared to see this httle chapel abandoned and to 
learn that this touching trumpery had been ban- 
ished to an attic. Till now the people of Vetheuil 
have preserved their Charity. But how much 
longer will these vestiges of the rites and the cus- 
toms of the past endure? 

Below Vetheuil a torn and ravined promontory 
presses close to the sudden bend of the river. No 
trees; a handful of vines; tufts of stunted vegeta- 
tion dotting the chalky slope. Nature has not 
been alone in tormenting and tearing this strange 
wall. Men have carved their habitations in this 
soft stone; and a subterranean village has been 
built in the hillside, like those villages which we 
find in the tufa of the river banks of the Loire. 
The men have deserted these troglodyte homes, 



From Mantes to La Roche-Guyon 173 

which are now no longer used save as cellars and 
stables. But the spot has retained a singular 
picturesqueness. A little church tower springs 
from the rock and sometimes we may stiU see the 
chimney of a cavern sending its smoke through 
the vines or the thickets. 

The village is called Haute-Isle. Formerly the 
manor house, surrounded by walls, was the only 
one which stood in the open. In the seventeenth 
century it sheltered ''the illustrious M. Dongois, 
chief registrar of parliament. " Now this illustrious 
M. Dongois was the uncle of the not less illustrious 
M. Nicolas Despreaux. And it was thus that 
Haute-Isle (then written Hautile) had the honor 
of being sung, if I dare say it, by Boileau himseK: 

It is a tiny village, or rather a hamlet, 

Built upon the slope of a long range of hills, 

Whence the eye may wander far across the neighboring plaing._ 

The Seine, at the foot of the mountains which are washed by its 

waves, 
Beholds twenty islets rise from the bosom of its waters, 
Which, dividing its flow in diverse manners, 
Form twenty rivers from a single stream. 
All its banks are covered with wildUng willows 
And with walnut trees often scourged by the passer-by. . . . 

These verses are a Httle rough, a tiny bit diffi- 
cult. Lyric quality and picturesqueness were not 
the busiaess of Boileau. Like all his contempo- 
raries — omitting La Fontaine and Sevigne — he 
neither knew how to describe a landscape nor to 
translate its emotion. From this incapacity it 
has been assumed that the men and the women of 



174 The Spell of the Heart of France 

the seventeenth century were indifferent to the 
charm of natiire. . . . They were not pantheists, 
assuredly; they had neither ecstasies nor trem- 
blings before the ''dramas" of light and the ''sav- 
age beauties" of the ocean or of the peaks. . . . 
But they imderstood and felt the grace of a 
beautiful valley. Since we have met the rural 
Boileau upon ovir way, let us collect his souvenirs 
of country residences. 

Let us first remark that if his description of 
Haute-Isle somewhat resembles a page of pen and 
ink drawing, we nevertheless find indicated there 
all of the particulars by which this landscape 
enchants us: the contrast of the rough, wild slope 
with the wide plain which stretches beyond the 
Seine, the grace of the river and its islands, the 
verdure of the willows and the walnuts. And 
Boileau does not forget to show us — by a some- 
what obscure periphrase — the urchin who, as he 
passes along the road, brings down the nuts by 
hurhng stones. 

What does Boileau do when he is in the country? 
He makes verses naturally, since his business is to 
be a poet. 

Here, in a valley which answers all my needs, 

I buy at Uttle expense solid pleasures: 

Sometimes, with book in hand, wandering ia the meadows, 

I occupy my mind with useful thoughts; 

Sometimes seeking the end of a line which I have constructed 

I find in a nook of the woods the word which had escaped me. . . . 




NICOL VS BOILEAU-DESPREAUX 



From Mantes to La Roche-Guyon 175 

Behold the solid pleasures of a constructor of 
verses, the friend of useful reveries. Reporters 
have recently questioned our men of letters as to 
how they "employ their vacations.". . . They 
have replied in prose by confidences quite like 
those which Boileau addressed in verse to M. 
Lamoignon, advocate general. 

But at Hautile, Boileau sometimes stopped to 
dream and rhyme; then, he ''jestingly allured the 
too eager fish"; or, he ''made war on the inhabi- 
tants of the air " ; and he tasted, on returning from 
the chase, the pleasure of an "agreeable and 
rustic" repast. 

So, when he was about to leave the country, he 
expressed the ordinary wish of every citizen and 
of every poet obliged to return to Paris : 

Oh, fortunate sojourn! Oh, fields beloved of heaven! 
Why, strolling forever through your deUcious prairies, 
Can I not fix my wandering course here 
And, known by you alone, forget the world outside? 

Charming verses, of which La Fontaine would 
not have been ashamed. 

And he said a sad adieu to this countryside, 
whose peace seemed to him sweeter and more 
salutary in proportion as the years made him feel 
more deeply the value of calm and especially of 
silence; he was then forty years old: 

Already less fuU of fire, to animate my voice, 
I have need of the silence and the shadow of the woods. 
******* * 

/ need repose, meadows and forests. 



176 The Spell of the Heart of France 

This is another very pretty hne, the Hne of a 
quadragenarian, . . 

* * * * •jt * * 

"By the riverside of Se3nie is a marvelous mount 
upon which formerly was built a castle, over 
strong and over proud and called La Roche- 
Guyon. It is still so high and fierce that scarcely 
may one see to its summit. He who made it and 
enclosed it, made, at the base of the mount and by 
cutting the rock, a great cave in the semblance of 
a house, which might have been made by nature." 
(Note 18.) 

The ''over proud" castle is still standing on the 
summit of the hill, dismantled, breached, ruined, 
but ever keeping its proud and fierce aspect. As 
to the house created "by cutting the rock," it has, 
so to speak, slowly moved away from the slope 
from century to century. It was at first a sort of 
den, hollowed beneath the donjon. Then its 
galleries stretched out and were extended to the 
edge of the escarpment; then the entrances to the 
subterranean castle were closed by fagades of stone 
and armed with towers; a fortress was thus built 
against the rock, and at the same time its ram- 
parts were thrown forward to the Seine. To the 
gloomy feudal citadel succeeded a chateau of the 
Renaissance, somewhat less terrible, and the 
castellans of the eighteenth century changed it 



Prom Mantes to La Roche-Guyon 177 

in the taste of their time without being able to 
deprive it of its warlike aspect. 

This history of the construction is manifest 
when we look upon this curious pile of different 
buildings. Above, the ruin of the donjon; at the 
foot of the slope and imited to it, a grand chateau 
whose front fagade is framed by two towers of the 
Middle Ages; and before this semi-feudal abode, 
charming stables in the style of those of Chantilly. 
A grandiose aggregation, utterly without harmony, 
almost barbaric, but in which is reflected with 
attractive clearness the whole past of France, 
from the invasion of the Normans to the Revo- 
lution. 

Beautiful furnishings, lovely paintings, fine 
carvings, adorn the apartments. The walls of the 
salon are covered with matchless tapestries, which 
portray the history of Esther. But it is the por- 
traits which monopolize our attention here. Some 
are mere copies. The others are attributed — 
correctly — to Mignard, to de Troy, to Nattier. 
They evoke the glorious or charming memories of 
the castellans and the chatelaines, and, thanks 
to them, the whole past of La Roche-Guy on is 
born again. I do not know that there is in the 
whole of France a chateau so rich in memories 
and in history. 

It belonged to the Guys de la Roche, and the 



178 The Spell of the Heart of France 

wife of one of them, the heroic Perrette de la 
Riviere, there sustained a siege of five months 
against the Enghsh. In the sixteenth century it 
belonged to the Sillys, and you may be shown the 
chamber where, on the morrow of the battle of 
Ivry, King Henri found a good supper, a good 
lodging and nothing more, for the virtuous 
Marquise de Guercheville ordered that his coach 
should be harnessed, so that he went away to the 
house of one of his lady friends two leagues from 
there — an admirable adventm-e on which a novel 
might be written. Then La Roche passed to the 
du Plessis-Liancourts : thus its name is mingled 
with the history of Jansenism; then to the La 
Rochef oucaulds : the author of the Maxims dwelt 
here; then, after the Revolution, to the Rohans, 
and in 1829 it returned to the La Rochefoucaulds. 
These names alone are a paean of glory. 

Among the portraits hung on the walls several 
represent the Marquise d'Enville at various ages. 
What pretty, fine features! It was this Marquise 
who created the chateau as it still exists today, and 
transformed the old citadel into a home of luxury. 
Her father, Alexandre de la Rochefoucauld, 
exiled by Louis XV to La Roche-Guy on, had taken 
advantage of the leisure given him by the King's 
disfavor to commence great works in his domain; 
he had planted trees upon the naked hillside, 



From Mantes to La RocKe-Guyon 179 

thrown down the useless embattlements of the 
fortress and constructed a new pavilion. The 
Marquise d'Enville succeeded him in 1779 and 
continued his work. Without thinking of expense, 
she built, laid out gardens, ordered paintings, 
tapestries and statues. She was a woman of taste 
and spirit: she corresponded with Walpole and 
Voltaire, was intimate with Turgot and Condorcet, 
declared herself the pupil of the philosophers, and 
made her salon the rendezvous of the economists. 
But it was said that she practiced philosophy more 
than she preached it; she had founded a free school 
in her village and had engaged nuns to teach in it; 
in years of bad harvests, she opened charitable 
workrooms for the poor. She showed herseK 
faithful and open-hearted in her friendships, for 
she remained the friend of Mile, de L'Espinasse 
without ceasing to be the friend of Madame du 
Deffand. She was one of those aristocrats who 
worked with candid generosity for the ruin of the 
aristocracy: the Revolution neither surprised nor 
frightened her. But, on September 4, 1792, a 
band of revolutionists at Gisors murdered her son, 
the Due de la Rochefoucauld, who had sat in the 
Constituent Assembly among the Constitution- 
alists. In the following year she was herself 
denounced, arrested, thrown into prison and owed 
her liberty, perhaps her life, only to a petition of 



180 The Spell of the Heart of Prance 

the citizens of the commune of La Roche-Guyon. 

She died in 1797 at the age of eighty. 

******* 

A little way back we met Boileau, dreaming at 
the foot of the bluff of Haute-Isle. A few steps 
farther on, at La Roche-Guyon, we meet Hugo 
and Lamartine; both stopped in this chateau 
during the Restoration. 

La Roche then belonged to the Due de Rohan- 
Chabot. 

A short while ago M. Charles Bailie pubhshed a 
fat book upon this personage, who was somewhat 
slender, somewhat droll, and even, I will ventiu-e 
to say, a little ridiculous. But as this biography 
gave its author an opportunity to study men and 
manners of the period of the Restoration, and as this 
study swarms with new and well-told anecdotes, 
we gladly ignore the insignificance of the hero. 
Here is a surmnary of the life of this cardinal-duke : 

Auguste de Chabot, born February 29, 1788, 
followed his father, the Prince of Leon, into exile, 
and returned to Paris with him in 1800. He was 
educated in a somewhat haphazard fashion by a 
refractory Oratorist and later by a former college 
regent. In 1807, when his grandfather, the Due de 
Rohan, died, his father became Due de Rohan and 
he himself Prince de Leon. When his father died 
in 1816 he became Duke de Rohan. 



From Mantes to La Roche-Guyon 181 

In 1808 he married Mile, de Serent, who was 
seventeen years old. Chateaubriand sometimes 
said to him: ''Come, Chabot, so that I may cor- 
rupt you"; but his morals remained irreproach- 
able. He traveled in Italy; he saw Madame 
Recamier and did not fall in love with her. Queen 
Caroline distinguished him. ''She treated him," 
said Lamartine, "with a marked favor which 
promised a royal friendship, if the future cardinal 
had seen in the most beautiful of women anything 
else than the delight of the eye." He had pretty 
features, gave infinite care to his toilet, wrote 
romantic poems and dabbled in water colors. 

In 1809 he became a chamberlain of the 
Emperor. In 1815 his wife was burned to death, 
the laces of her gown having taken fire. In 1819 
he entered the seminary of Saint Sulpice and was 
ordained a priest in 1822. Madame de Broglie 
thus described him, in the following year: "He 
had a thin pale face, and, at the same time, a 
coquettish care for his person which seemed to 
join honest instincts with former worldly memories; 
in his face there was a mingling of fanaticism and 
foolishness. " 

He went to La Roche-Guyon to preach and on 
this occasion he chose five hundred volumes from 
the magnificent library collected by the Marquise 
d'Enville, piled them up in the castle courtyard 



182 The Spell of the Heart of France 

and burned them : they were rare volumes adorned 
with precious bindings. Later he went to Rome, 
where he expected to be made a cardinal. He 
returned without the purple; but he had converted 
Madame de Recamier's chambermaid. 

In 1828 he was elevated to the archbishopric of 
Auch and later to that of Besangon. He dissat- 
isfied the seminarists by untimely reforms; he did 
not take it amiss that ecclesiastics should wear 
poHshed laced boots. He shocked the liberals by 
his bigotry and the clergy by his luxury. He 
restored his cathedral; but he spoiled the apse, 
broke out the crossbars of the windows to replace 
them by frightful stained glass, demolished the 
altar, which was a beautiful work of art of the 
eighteenth century, and cast out a beautiful stone 
pulpit of the fifteenth century from which Saint 
Francis de Sala had preached. 

He was made cardinal in the month of July, 
1830. The fall of the Bourbons forced him to flee 
to Belgium, whence he passed into Switzerland. 
After the death of Pius VIII, he took part in the 
conclave which elected Gregory XVI and offici- 
ated at the marriage of the Duchess de Berry to 
Count Lucchesi-Pah. He returned to his diocese 
in 1832, where he was received by a riot. He 
nevertheless remained there and died in 1833 of 
typhoid fever. 




CARDINAL-DUC DE ROHAN-CHABOT 



From Mantes to La Roche-Cuyon 183 

The Patriote, a newspaper of Besangon, which 
had opposed him, pubhshed the day after his 
death a courteous article: ''We do not doubt that 
he owed what influence he had to his virtue. He 
prayed devoutly and the accent of his voice, 
intoning the chants of the Church, breathed true 
religion. No one can say what he would have 
eJEfected among us, if his career had been longer 
and if he had become reconciled to ovir Revolution." 

. . . You think, without doubt, of Bouvard 
and Pecuchet taking notes to write the life of the 
Due d'Angoul^me. So do I. 

Now let us return to La Roche-Guyon. 

Montalembert, Marchangy, Berryer, Dupan- 
loup, Hugo, Lamartine, were there the guests of 
the Abbe-Duc de Rohan. 

How Hugo made the acquaintance of the Due 
de Rohan and visited him at La Roche-Guyon; 
how, terrified by the princely formality which 
reigned as well in the chapel of the chateau as in 
the dining room, he fled after two days; finally 
how the Due de Rohan gave Lamennais to Hugo 
as a confessor, may be read in Volume II of Victor 
Hugo raconte par un temoin de sa vie. We must 
not neglect to consult also the severe but exact 
work of M. Bire. 

Lamartine wrote one of his most admirable 
Meditations at La Roche-Guyon: 



184 The Spell of the Heart of Prance 

Here comes to die the world's last echoing sound; 
Sailors whose star has set, ashore! here is the port: 
Here, the soul steeps itself in peace the most profound, 
And this peace is not death. 

In the note which he left as a sequel to this 
poem, Lamartine relates that, in 1819, the Due 
de Rohan was introduced to him by Due Mathieu 
de Montmorency. "We became close friends 
without his ever making me feel, and without my 
ever allowing myself to forget, by that natural 
tact which is the etiquette of nature, the distance 
which he indeed wished to bridge, but which 
nevertheless existed between two names which 
poesy alone could bring together for an instant." 
This is exquisite, with an affectation of respect 
which borders on impertinence. 

The Meditation is entitled Holy Week at La 
Roche-Guyon. Not a line of this grand lyric piece 
reveals that it was conceived in this place rather 
than in any other. Lamartine has thus attempted 
to justify his title: "The principal ornament of the 
chateau," he writes, "was a chapel hollowed in the 
rock, a true catacomb, affecting, in the cavernous 
circimivolutions of the mountain, the form of the 
naves, the choirs, the pillars, the rood-lofts, of a 
cathedral. He induced me to go to pass Holy 
Week there with him. He took me there himself. 
. . . The religious service, pious voluptuousness 
of the Due de Rohan, was celebrated every day in 



From Mantes to La Roche-Guyon 185 

this subterranean church, with a pomp, a luxury, 
and holy enchantments, which intoxicate youthful 
imaginations. ..." 

The picture is dehghtful. Unfortunately it 
entirely emerged from the ''youthful imagina- 
tion" of Lamartine. The subterranean church 
still exists at La Roche-Guyon, just as in the time 
of the Due de Rohan. But the triple chapel, cut 
in the hill, and sufficiently hghted from outside, 
has nowise the appearance of a catacomb. There 
are no ''cavernous circumvolutions, " naves, choirs, 
pillars, rood-lofts. The cathedral is composed of 
three httle vaulted rooms. . . . 

And I now think of the honest BoUeau. He 
would not have mystified us or himseh in this 
manner! It is true that you and I would give the 
whole epistle to Lamoignon for this single line: 

Sailors whose star has set, ashore! here is the port. 



XI 

NOYON 

THE light softens and dims, even in these days 
of the dog star, and, under this heaven of 
palest azure, the puissant harmony of ver- 
dure and red bricks announces the neighborhood 
of Flanders. Only the stone towers of the cathe- 
dral dominate with their gray mass the ruddy 
buildings and the leafage of the gardens. 

Noyon possessed immense convents which were 
razed during the Revolution. Scattered remnants 
still mark the sites of these monasteries; here an 
apse transformed into a storehouse, there the f agade 
of a chapel. The monks have departed; but the 
town has retained a monastic aspect; and it is a 
place where one might make a retreat. In the 
silence of the melancholy streets, the pavements 
seem to ring more sonorously, and the passer 
listens with surprise to the echo of his steps 
between the silent houses. . . . 

Upon the market place, the delicate and florid 
f agade of the old Hotel de Ville of the Renaissance 
calls up the images of communal life, peculiar to 

186 



Noyon 187 

the little cities of the north; we look for the belfry 
tower, we expect to hear the chimes; but the dis- 
putatious conunune of the Middle Ages is now a 
wise, sad and pensive little town. In the staircase, 
sculptures in high rehef portray the heavy gayeties 
of northern cUmes; but Noyon is now a wise, sad 
and decent little town. 

On the same square stands a curious fountain 
provided by the liberality of an eighteenth-century 
prelate. Statues of the cardinal virtues decorate 
its pedestal from which rises an obeUsk, surrounded 
by emblems and allegories; we see there a Cupid 
caressing a lamb, quivers, arrows, a hound, — 
symbols of innocent love and of fidelity. An in- 
scription placed upon the monument recalls to 
the people of Noyon that among them Chilperic II 
was buried, Charlemagne consecrated and Hugh 
Capet elected king. I do not know whether this 
inscription is as old as the fountain: it has a 
certain grandeur in its conciseness; let us praise 
the towns which thus array themselves in their 
past glories, and recall the part which they have 
played in the destinies of France. . . . 

With its houses of brick and its gardens sur- 
rounded by high walls, its silence and its memories, 
Noyon would merit the tenderness of its people, 
even if Noyon did not possess its admirable 
cathedral. . . . 



188 The Spell of the Heart of France 

What a charming picture is made by the apse, 
with its radiating chapels! Torch holders orna- 
ment the flying buttresses, which were restored in 
the eighteenth century: they drive to despair the 
pure archaeologists and fill with Joy men without 
taste who, insensitive to unity of style, love to 
hear monuments tell their history, their whole 
history. To this harmonious apse is joined the 
treasury, and then a fine structure with wooden 
panels of the sixteenth century, the library of the 
canons: its street floor was formerly arcaded and 
sheltered a market; alas! it has been walled up, 
. , . Behind, the buildings of the chapter house, 
hovels, turi^ets, an arcade thrown across the street, 
a high crenellated wall, surround the cloister and 
the flanks of the cathedral; and the picturesque- 
ness of these disordered lines is delightful. 

On the other side of the apse appears a lamen- 
table breach. Here formerly stood the chapel of 
the bishopry; it was attached to the crossing of the 
church and thus the little portal of the transept 
was exquisitely framed. This thirteenth-century 
chapel was long since abandoned; it had lost its 
ancient roof; but these ancient walls should have 
been respected. To free the cathedral, they have 
been leveled to the ground. . . . Not quite, how- 
ever, for the owner of a cellar excavated beneath 
this chapel resisted the efforts of the architect: 



Noyon 189 

today the remnants of the Uttle edifice still remain. 
And they have not even the appearance of a ruin, 
but the piteous aspect of a demolition. Thus has 
been destroyed a truly beautiful grouping, and 
the cathedral, quite contrary to good sense, has 
been isolated from the ancient bishopry to permit 
the people of Noyon to walk all around their 
church. At least, this is the only benefit they have 
received from it. 

Before the east front of the church Ues a little 
square surroimded by the tranquil and substantial 
homes of the canons. Upon the piers of each door, 
great vases swell their paunches and project their 
stone flames : this is the leit motiv of the eighteenth 
century. The canons for whom these beautiful 
homes were constructed had only to cross the 
parvis to enter the cathedral. This rises before 
their houses with its massive towers, which are 
not crowned by spires, but in which the mixture 
of the plain arch with the pointed marks the orig- 
inaliV of the building. The vast porch, with three 
doorways whose sculptures were sacked by the Rev- 
olutionists and then by the administrators of the 
Restoration, preserves an inimitable majesty. . . . 

The exterior of this church charmed us especially 
by its picturesqueness ; within, it gives us an 
impression of perfect beauty. 



190 The Spell of the Heart of France 

It ravishes us at first by the balance of its differ- 
ent parts, by the justness of its proportions. Its 
plan is a masterpiece. In almost all our cathedrals 
we admire the choir, then we admire the nave; if 
we wish to take in the whole edifice at a single 
glance, we are still astonished by its grandeur and 
majesty, but our eye no longer experiences the 
same dehght nor our mind the same satisfaction. 
If we take up a position at the entrance of Notre 
Dame de Noyon, in that species of vestibule which 
opens on the first bay of the nave and which here 
rises to the height of the vaulting, we have before 
us an absolutely harmonious work. The glance 
can travel as far as the apse without being arrested 
by any discordance. There is, I believe, no Gothic 
church where the dimensions of the nave cor- 
respond in so happy a fashion to the dimensions 
of the choir. The unity of the monument is 
incomparable. The choir seems to be the com- 
pletion, the expansion of the long Gothic structure. 
The nave seems to make its way to this circle of 
light, without haste, with a tranquil and bold 
rhythm which is produced by the regular alter- 
nation of its naked columns and its pilasters 
flanked by tiny pillars. . . . 

This forms the beauty, so to speak, the intel- 
lectual beauty, of the cathedral of Noyon. But its 
most original character, by which it enchants our 




From a drawing by Blanche McManus 

CATHEDRAL OF NOYON 



Noyon 191 

imagination and impresses itself in our memory, 
is the marvelous combination of the pointed and 
the circular arch. (Note 19.) It is charming 
among all those charming churches which rose in 
the twelfth century in the valleys of the Oise and 
the Seine, and in which architects endowed with 
genius knew how to bring together the round arcs 
of the declining Romanesque and the pointed arches 
of the Gothic at its dawning. In no other place did 
the art of these constructors display itseK in so 
refined and subtle a manner; nowhere else can we 
find so complete a success; in no other region has 
the marriage of tradition and moderation given 
birth to a more exquisite work. 

Consider the elevations of the nave: the arches 
which separate the nave from the side aisles break 
in ogives; the tribunes are pierced with pointed 
apertures divided by little columns and sur- 
mounted by trefoil windows; the light penetrates 
this triforium through Romanesque windows; 
above these tribunes runs a little gallery whose 
arches are circular, and higher still the twin 
windows of the clerestory are framed with semi- 
circular arches. In the transepts, whose two arms 
end in apses, there are other combinations, but 
the two varieties of arches are always fraternally 
associated; the Gothic and the Romanesque al- 
ternate from the ground to the vaulting. In the 



192 The Spell of the Heart of Prance 

choir, finally, the arcades, round-arched in the two 
first bays, are pointed at the back of the apse and 
the lines of the clerestory reproduce the same 
arrangement; the tribunes are cut in points and 
the arches of the gallery are divided in trefoil. To 
this diversity of lines we must add the diversity 
of decoration. Two styles are here juxtaposed: 
here are the monsters, the grotesques and the 
foUage of Romanesque art, and there the more 
sober and truthful sculpture of Gothic art. 

But — here is the miracle — all these contrasts 
appear only when we closely analyze the elements 
of the edifice. They never make discords; they 
never enfeeble the impression of grace, ease and 
perfection which we experienced when we entered 
Notre Dame de Noyon. 

There has been much discussion about the date 
of the construction of this church. 

This question was not in the least embarrassing 
to Jacques Le Vasseur, the dean of the chapter, 
who published in 1633 a volume of 1400 pages, 
entitled Annales de Veglise cathedrale de Noyon. 
For him, the choir where he went every day to sing 
the psalms had been built by Saint M^dard in the 
sixth century; Charlemagne had constructed the 
nave; then, after the year 1000, ''our choir was 
refreshed, our nave completed, our belfries added, 



Noyon 193 

for the accomplishment of the work." Neverthe- 
less he added: ''At least the experts judge that 
these works and manufactures are of these times. 
..." The excellent Le Vasseur was not, in any 
case, the man to contradict them in their judg- 
ments, for he consecrated a chapter of his book to 
demonstrating that the foundation of Noyon by 
Noah was ''probable"; and it is easy to guess the 
reasons which he extracted from philology. 

The "experts" of the nineteenth century looked 
a Httle closer. When they had learned to dis- 
tinguish Romanesque art from Gothic art, they 
quickly succeeded in classifying the cathedral of 
Noyon among the monuments of the transition. 
In a vital and eloquent study which he published 
in 1845, in which in describing the cathedral of 
Noyon he studied the origins and celebrated the 
beauties of Gothic art, Vitet maintained that this 
cathedral was "conceived and entirely outlined 
from 1150 to 1170 and that it was entirely carved, 
finished off and completed only toward the end of 
the century or perhaps even a little later." These 
dates are not quite exact: M. Eugene Lefevre^ 
PontaUs has demonstrated this by the archives and 
by the archaeological examination of the monu- 
ment itself; he has proved that the choir was fin- 
ished in 1157, the nave in 1220, that the vaultings 
fell in a fire at the close of the thirteenth century 



194 The Spell of the Heart of France 

and that the church was then repahed. . . . And 
I refer you to his excellent Histoire de la cathedrale 
de Noyon. (Note 20.) 

The two arms of the transept are rounded m the 
form of an apse. This plan is frequently met with 
in Romanesque cathedrals, and especially in those 
of the lower Rhine. We find it also in the cathedral 
of Tournai, and it was doubtless from the latter 
that the architects of Noyon borrowed the idea of 
their transept, for imtil the middle of the twelfth 
century the two dioceses were united under the 
same pastoral staff. Besides, if I were an archaeol- 
ogist, I would study attentively the plans of these 
two churches: perhaps this comparison would 
explain some of the peculiarities of Noyon. Noth- 
ing can be more graceful than these two circular 
arms, where the variety of the arches gives an 
additional charm to the curved lines. . . . But 
here behold the malice of the restorers. 

The north arm has not been restored. Several 
of its windows were bricked up in the eighteenth 
century; the ground-floor windows have been 
replaced by niches decorated with statues, and at 
the end of the apse a httle door has been opened to 
communicate with the sacristy. The men who 
thus treated a venerable monument of the Middle 
Ages were vandals, I admit. But there is, just the 



Noyon 195 

same, a very pleasing and very delicate reminis- 
cence of the Renaissance in the decoration which 
they plastered over the twelfth-century walls. 
They diminished the Ught in this part of their 
chm-ch; but is not this better than the crude day- 
light which enters through the clear panes? In 
short, they altered the character of the ancient 
edifice, but they left it accent and life. 

Turn toward the opposite arm. It also had been 
modified in the course of centuries, but it has 
recently been restored to its original condition. 
A door gave communication with the bishop's 
garden; it has been suppressed. Several openings 
had been blocked up, but have been reopened. In 
short, it has been restored; and it is just for the 
purpose of better restoring it that they have, as I 
have described, demolished the little chapel of the 
bishopry. All this was accomphshed with the 
rarest skill and the most exact science. This apse 
now presents the aspect of a perfect scheme of 
architecture. It is light, it is clean, it is finished. 
But where is the accent? Where is the life? The 
most vandal of the vandals are not always those 
we would suspect. 

4: :): ^ 4: ^ ^ 4: 

Under the crossing of the transept stands the 
chief altar of white marble. Its table is a vast 
rounded console, supported by the uplifted hands 



196 The Spell of the Heart of France 

of six angels of gilded bronze and surmounted by 
a little circular temple. The steps of the altar, the 
friezes and the capitals of the little temple are 
ornamented with chiseled copper. It is a very- 
beautiful work of art of the style of Louis XVI. It 
was put in place in 1779. 

Until the eighteenth century, the cathedral had 
retained its old altar of the thirteenth century: 
placed, according to the ancient custom, at the 
very end of the apse, without candles, without 
crucifix, without tabernacle, it was a simple table 
surrounded by curtains which were opened only at 
the elevation of the host; the altar cloths varied 
according to the office of the day; the altar screen 
was adorned with precious shrines. 

Now, in 1753, an architect and inspector of 
buildings of the King, who resided at Compiegne, 
Louis Godot, proposed to the chapter of Noyon 
the designing of an altar "d la romaine." His 
project pleased the chapter, which accepted it, 
despite the violent opposition of Claude Bonne- 
dame and several other canons, who were displeased 
with the proposed destruction of the Gothic altar. 

Godot, who proposed also to replace the ancient 
choir stalls, to demolish the rood-loft and to sur- 
round the choir with gratings, prepared a sketch. 
The chapter appropriated the sum necessary for 
the work. But Bonnedame and his friends were 



Noyon 197 

not through; they addressed a request to the heu- 
tenant-general of the baihwick, invoking the 
fathers of the church, the hturgy and respect for 
ancient things. The intendant of the province- 
ship came to Noyon to pacify the chapter. But 
Bonnedame became more and more intractable. 
The King remitted the affair to the council of state. 
The opposing parties again brought forward their 
liturgical arguments, and added that the sum asked 
for the decoration of the choir would be better 
employed if used to reconstruct the vaultings 
which threatened to collapse. Experts were 
appointed to examine the condition of the vault- 
ings and declared it to be excellent. Bonnedame 
did not wish to confess himseK vanquished and 
reasserted his grievances. Godot replied and set 
up the authority of Michelangelo: it should be 
quite permissible to place the altar in the transept 
at Noyon, since it was thus done at Saint Peter's 
in Rome! The council of state finally ratified the 
first decision of the chapter and completed the 
discomfiture of Bonnedame and his partisans. 

M. Lefevre-Pontalis, from whom I borrow this 
anecdote, cites with honor the names of the canons 
who, under the leadership of Bonnedame, showed 
themselves in these circumstances ''the defenders 
of good archaeological traditions." Let us there- 
fore praise the canons Du Heron, Cuquigny, 



198 The Spell of the Heart of France 

Bertault, du Tombelle, Antoine de Caisnes, 
Pelleton, Mauroy and Reneufve, who showed a 
meritorious zeal for the protection of an altar of 
the thirteenth century. Such sentiments are not 
common among churchmen, even in 1905; they 
were still more rare in 1754. Yes — for the love of 
principle — let us celebrate this pious pigheadedness. 
Only . . . only, when I look at the altar ''d 
la romaine" conceived by Godot, I ask myself, 
with all sorts of remorse and scruples, whether 
Bonnedame or his adversaries were right. This 
Roman altar is a pure marvel of elegance. The 
angels of gilded bronze which support the table, 
and which are attributed to Gouthieze, are delight- 
ful statuettes; the copper garlands and emblems 
which decorate the marble are of the finest work- 
manship; the little temple elevated above the 
tabernacle is dehcate in taste, despite its Trianon- 
esque appearance . . . And what an unexpected 
harmony between this charming bibelot and the 
old cathedral of the twelfth century! Yes, this 
altar is in its right place, in spite of the liturgy, in 
spite of the proprieties, in spite of the respectable 
prejudices of Bonnedame. An exquisite harmony 
exists between the curve of the steps, the table and 
the tabernacle, and the rounded forms of the choir 
and of the transept. What foolishness is this unity 
of style! 



Hoyoii 190 

Then Bonnedame was wrong? I do not know, 
but, today, we must honor his memory and recom- 
mend his example; for, if some one today decided 
to plan to remove the Romanesque altar of the 
cathedral of Noyon, it would be to substitute for 
it a Neo-Gothic altar, which would be abominable, 
encumbering and out of place: on this point there 
is no doubt. 

Godot's altar just escaped being treated by the 
Revolutionists as the Gothic altar had been by 
the canons. A mason wished to break down this 
monument of superstition. But a representative 
of the people interfered and made this brute 
understand that what he thought were angels were 
goddesses of love, that the bunches of grapes and 
the ears of wheat were not the emblems of the 
Eucharist, but those of the cult of Ceres and of 
Bacchus. The altar was spared and became that 
of the Goddess of Reason. Persons who today 
still share the opinion of Bonnedame, will perhaps 
find that the representative of the people did but 
reestablish the truth. Let us reprove such a 
manner of thought. ... 

Of the cloister of the cathedral, there stiU 
remains only a single gallery. The rest, very- 
dilapidated, was torn down by the workmen of the 
fabric of Notre Dame de Noyon in 1811. 



200 The Spell of the Heart of France 

On this gallery opens the great chapter hall, an 
admhable Gothic nave where the restorers have 
done their work. In the cloister itself, their zeal 
was more moderate and more discreet. They 
repaired the broken roofs, boimd with iron the 
falling columns, respected the breaches and the 
breaks. 

As the great walls on which the destroyed 
triforium rested still stand, the aspect of the place 
has not changed, its intimate beauty has not been 
violated. One may stUl enjoy there the eternal 
silence, shadow, freshness and coolness. . . . One 
hears there only the droning of the flies, while, in 
the midst of the area, a grand weeping willow 
shades an old well with rusty iron fittings. 

Under the cloister fragments of carving have 
been laid, and in this pile of stones we discover 
with melancholy a few admirable fragments. Some 
beautiful tombstones have been set up along the 
walls. ... 

The afternoon is torrid. It is pleasant to linger 
under these arches and deliver oneself to the 
pleasures of epigraphy. Let us decipher the epi- 
taphs. 

Here is that of a Bishop of Noyon, M. Jean 
Frangois de La Cropte de Bourzac, who died 
January 23, 1766. Three distichs commemorate 
the humility of the defunct, his piety, his devotion 



Noyon 201 

to the King. Below these Latin verses, which are 
elegantly banal, we discover a name which excites 
our curiosity: Gresset. It was, in fact, the author 
of Vert-Vert whom the canons retained to compose 
the epitaph of their bishop. It is doubtful whether 
our Bonnedame, the enemy of Roman altars, 
would have aided the poet in glorifying the vir- 
tues of M. Jean Frangois de La Cropte de Bourzac : 
for it was in fact under the rule of this bishop that 
an abandoned architect undertook the new decora- 
tion of the choir of the cathedral of Noyon. 

Upon a great tombstone is represented the Last 
Judgment. t^We see there the Great Judge, the 
angel who sounds the trumpet and declaims: 
Surgite, mortui, venite, the defunct who rises from 
his tomb, hangs his shroud on the arm of the cross 
and says to the Lord: Domine, jube ad me venire, 
other open sepulchers and scattered bones. Below 
these images we read these lines, which lack 
neither force nor savor (Note 21) : 

The body of Gilles Coquevil, 
Were he rich or poor, noble or vile, 
Before being laid to rot here, 
Is without food and drink 
Awaiting the Judgment 
And the decree of the last day 
Where we must all. . . 
Render account of past evils. 
May God give his soul promptly 
Pardon, and so to all trespassers. 

In the same church, beside the door of the 
cloister, a singular face surmounts an interminable 



202 The Spell of the Heart of France 

epitaph. It is the face of an old mandarin, uni- 
formly bald and symmetrically wrinkled. We 
see the man to the middle of his body, his arms 
folded and his thumbs down. His mien, his pose, 
the expression of his face, have something inde- 
scribably Chinese. On his breast appears a 
mysterious object, in the shape of an ostrich egg, 
on which is engraved a column with these words: 
Ito fidens. ... It is necessary to read the epitaph 
to find the key to the riddle. This mandarin is 
Jacques Le Vasseur, canon and historian of the 
church of Noyon, whose name I have already 
mentioned in connection with the origins of the 
cathedral. The epitaph commences with a ter- 
rible pun upon the Latin name of Le Vasseur, 
Vasserius. A golden vase, it is there said, vas 
aureits, is hidden in this tomb, but it should not 
tempt the cupidity of any one, for it contains only 
virtues. It is this symboHc vase that is carved 
upon the stone. The' column is that which guided 
the confident canon towards his eternal home: 
fidens ito . . . And we learn also — in a delightful 
Latin which I translate clumsily, — that 'Hhis man 
of good hved, in every place, niggardly for himself, 
generous for others; that is why, dying, he left Ht- 
tle except mingled rare and precious books, prefer- 
able — by the declarations of the wise — to the 
treasures of the Orient as much as to the magnifi- 



Noyon 203 

cent and tinkling adornments of the North. ..." 
All these puerilities do not lack charm, especially 
when they keep us in the cool shadow of a 
cathedral, at the hottest and most blinding hour of 
the day. . . . 

:^ H: 4: H: ^ t): ^ 

The day declines. It is the moment when all 
the beauty of the cathedral is revealed. Now the 
contrasts of lights and shades become more mov- 
ing. A soft green clarity fills the choir, and lends 
to its architecture a more subtle and airy grace; 
it filters through the high openings of the nave, 
illuminates the pointed arches of the vaulting, 
accentuates the ramifications of the arches; the 
whole structure appears lighter and more tri- 
umphal. 

We return toward the great open doors, and, 
after the magnificence of the church, savor the deU- 
cate and peaceful intimacy of the town. In the 
triple bay of the portal is framed the little square 
of the parvis where, ranged Uke canons in the 
choir, the houses of the chapter seem to slumber 
in the twihght, and ... at the end of a narrow 
street, roofs, gables and dark clumps of verdure 
outline themselves against a rosy sky. . . . 



xn 

SOISSONS 

SAINT-JEAN-DES-VIGNES 

SOISSONS is a white, peaceable and smiling 
city whose tower and pointed spires rise 
from the bank of a lazy river, in the midst 
of a circle of green hills: town and countryside 
call to mind the httle pictures which the illumina- 
tors of our old manuscripts painted with loving 
care. Here is France, pure France: nothing of 
that Flemish air assumed by the httle towns of 
the valley of the Oise, with their brick houses, 
such as exquisite Noyon, like a great heguinage. 
Precious monuments relate the whole history of 
the French monarchy, from the Merovingian 
crypts of the abbey of Saint Medard to the 
beautiful hotel built on the eve of the Revolution 
for the intendants of the provinces. In the midst 
of the narrow streets and the httle gardens, a 
magnificent cathedral extends the two arms of its 
great transept; on the north a flat wall and an 
immense expanse of glass; on the south, that 
marvelous apse where the pointed and the 
rounded arch mingle in so delicate a fashion. 

204 



Soissons 205 

One cannot omit a malediction in passing on 
the architect who, to the dishonor of the interior 
of this monument, marked off each stone with 
black joints, checkering it in such an exasperating 
manner that all the lines of the architecture are 
lost. 

A promenade through the streets of this lovable 
town is charming. Today, I would like to enter- 
tain you with the most celebrated of the monu- 
ments of Soissons, the abbey of Saint-Jean-des- 
Vignes. 

Of this monastery, which was one of the most 
beautiful and richest in France, there remains only 
the fagade of the church, the remains of a cloister 
of the fourteenth century, traces of a cloister of 
the Renaissance, a few buildings of the seven- 
teenth century, and a magnificent Gothic hall, 
the refectory of the convent. 

How the abbey of Saint-Jean-des-Vignes was 
reduced to a state of ruin is an interesting chapter 
of the history of vandalism, which I will briefly 
relate to you. Then we will see what steps would 
be necessary to save the refectory building. 

Founded in the eleventh century, the abbey of 
Saint-Jean-des-Vignes followed the rule of Saint 
Augustine. Its monks were Joannist canons. 
Their duty consisted in celebrating mass within 



206 The Spell of the Heart of France 

the monastery and in acting as curates in the 
forty parishes which belonged to the community 
in the dioceses of Soissons and of Meaux. Ninety 
canons remained encloistered ; fifty priests served 
the parishes. Because of their hohness and their 
knowledge, the Joannists had acquired such 
renown during the Middle Ages that Cardinal 
Jean de Dormans confided to the monks of Saint- 
Jean-des-Vignes the direction of the college of 
Dormans-Beauvais founded by him at Paris. 

The gifts of kings, nobles and citizens gave the 
canons means wherewith to undertake the con- 
struction of a great church. About 1335 they 
laid the foundations of the nave and the towers. 
At the end of the fourteenth century the walls of 
the nave were finished, and the towers had risen 
to the level of the great rose window. The plunder- 
ings of the Abb^ R,emy d'Orbais, and later the 
wars of the Armagnacs and the Burgundians, 
interrupted the work, and it was not until about 
the end of the fifteenth century that the vaultings 
and the tiles were put in place. The two towers 
were not finished until later, the smaller in the 
last years of the fifteenth century, the greater 
in 1520. The construction of the church had 
occupied more than two hundred years. (Note 22.) 

In 1567, two years after the death of the last 
canon regular of Saint-Jean-des-Vignes, the Prot- 



Soissons 207 

estants devastated the abbey: the hbrary and the 
treasury were plundered, the stained glass and 
the statues were broken, the carvings were burned 
and the fountains demohshed. The commenda- 
tory monks took Httle pains to repair the damages. 

At the beginning of the Revolution, there were 
no more than thirty monks in the monastery. 
They were expelled, and the nave of the church 
was used as a mihtary bakeshop. 

There is a widely believed legend that the 
church was demolished during the Revolution. 
This is absolutely false. At this time, as the roofs 
were not well looked after, a bay of the vaulting fell ; 
but, under the Consulate, the monument was still 
solid and a few repairs would have sufficed to 
preserve it. It was torn down by a bishop of 
Soissons, Mgr. Leblanc de Beaulieu. 

It is a painful story. I have before me the' 
administrative documents of this abominable 
destruction, documents which were brought to 
my attention by M. Max Sainsaulieu, the architect 
of the historic monuments of Soissons. These 
documents are instructive. 

On August 1, 1804, the churchwardens of the 
cathedral and parish church of Soissons address 
themselves to the mayor of the city and disclose 
to him that their church is in great need of repairs 
and that these indispensable works wiU cost 



208 The Spell of the Heart of France 

23,786 francs. '^The desire," they write, 'Ho 
lighten as much as possible this charge upon our 
town, has suggested to us a means which would 
totally free us from it, at least for several years. 
This means consists in obtaining from the govern- 
ment the right to dispose of the former church of 
the abbey of Saint-Jean-des-Vignes, in order to 
employ the products of its demohtion for the 
conservation and repair of the cathedral. It will 
not be difficult for you. Monsieur le Maire, to 
convince the government by a description of the 
present condition of this church, and by a relation 
of the accidents which almost happened two years 
ago and again recently, by the falling of various 
parts of it, that the total demohtion of this struc- 
ture will produce no real disadvantage to the 
national treasury and will contribute advanta- 
geously to pubhc safety. ..." 

Behind the churchwardens, it is really the 
bishop who demands the demohtion of the 
church. As a matter of fact, on April 25, 1805, by 
a decree given at the Stapinigi Palace, the Emperor 
orders that the prefect of the department of the 
Aisne, at the instance of the Bishop of Soissons, 
shall put at his disposal the church of Saint-Jean- 
des-Vignes, ''in order that the materials coming 
from the church may be used in the repair of the 
cathedral": the inhabitants of Soissons must 



Soissons 209 

merely, in. exchange for this concession, consoH- 
date the walls of the other parts of the abbey which 
have been granted to the Administration of 
Powder and Saltpeter. 

Mgr. Leblanc de Beauheu receives his decree. 
Meanwhile the inhabitants of Soissons are 
alarmed at this project of demohtion, protest 
against the plan of the prelate and take their 
grievances to the prefect. It is often assumed 
that before the advent of romanticism no one in 
France cared for the monuments of the Middle 
Ages. Now, as early as 1805, the news that the 
church of Saint-Jean-des-Vignes is about to be 
destroyed excites the indignation of the people 
of Soissons. The archaeologists make ready for 
battle. The prefect writes to the bishop (June 
26, 1805): "Monsieur, I am receiving a great 
number of complaints against the approaching 
demohtion of the church of Saint-Jean: the 
inhabitants of Soissons appear to be extremely 
attached to this edifice, which they regard as a 
precious monument of the arts. I have the honor 
to forward to you a copy of a historical summary 
which has been forwarded to me. As it belongs to 
you. Monsieur, to decide the fate of this church, 
which is at your disposal, I can only confide 
in what your good sense and your enlightened 
love for the arts will suggest to you." 



^10 The Spell of the Heart of France 

His "enlightened love for the arts" does not 
in the least inspire the bishop with a desire to 
save the church; but the complaints of his jflock 
embarrass him, and he explains to the prefect that 
he himself cannot proceed in a regular manner, 
that it is unsuitable that a bishop should have 
''personal connection with the demolition of a 
church." And, for four years, matters remain at 
this stage. 

Finally, in 1807, disdaining the protests and 
triiunphing over his own scruples, the bishop 
awards the glass and the ironwork to a certain 
Archin. In 1809 he empowers his notary to treat 
in his name with the contractors for demolition. 
All that he accords to the inhabitants of Soissons 
is the preservation of the fagade. 

The bargain is concluded between "Antoine 
Isidore Petit de Reimpre, imperial notary, domi- 
ciled at Soissons, in the name and endowed with 
the powers of Mgr. Jean Claude Leblanc-Beaulieu, 
Bishop of Soissons and Laon, baron of the Empire 
and member of the Legion of Honor, of the first 
part; and Leonard Wallot, building contractor, 
and Pierre-Joseph Delacroix pere, carpenter. . . ." 
By the terms of the agreement, the two towers and 
the portals must remain intact, and the contrac- 
tors are even obliged to do certain work of con- 
solidation. But nothing will remain of the nave 



Soissons 211 

and the choir of the church: "All the parts to be 
demohshed shall be demolished down to and 
including the foundations. The rubbish caused 
by the demolition shall at first be thrown into 
the vaults of the church; consequently the ceilings 
of the aforesaid vaults shall be demolished, the 
ground shall be perfectly leveled and the surplus 
of the rubbish shall be transported into the fields." 
This is not aU. The bishop reserves for his own 
share a hundred and sixty cubic meters of ashlar! 
The price of the sale was fixed at three thousand 
francs. 

For six hundred dollars, they leveled to the 
ground a marvelous Gothic edifice, the largest 
church of the diocese except the cathedral; the 
choir was composed, as a matter of fact, of two 
bays, the transept likewise of two bays, and the 
nave of five; it was sixty meters long and twenty- 
six high. It is an excellent custom to carve upon 
the monuments the names of those who have 
built and repaired them. It would not be ill if 
upon the ruins of Saint-Jean-des-Vignes an inscrip- 
tion should recall the absurd demohtion and the 
name of its author, Mgr. Leblanc de BeauUeu. 

In 1821 the demolition was not yet complete, 
for Wallot found some difficulty in selling his 
ashlar. It is said that several houses of Soissons 
were built with the stone of Saint-Jean-des-Vignes. 



212 The Spell of the Heart of France 



The Department of War, which had been 
granted the buildings of the abbey, continued the 
work of the ecclesiastical housebreakers. It tore 
down a small Renaissance cloister. Had it not 
been for the intervention of the Archaeological 
Society of Soissons, it would have destroyed the 
two galleries of the great cloister which still 
stand. Finally, in 1870, the German shells did 
great damage and set a fire which calcined the 
lower part of the portal. 

* * * * * * * 

Today, a part of the ruins has been placed in 
charge of the Administration of Fine Arts. It 
is possible to visit the towers, the organ platform 
and the great cloister. 

It is a lamentable spectacle, that of this mag- 
nificent fagade, now isolated like a useless stage 
setting: through the three bays of the portal we 
perceive the ground which was carefully leveled, in 
accordance with the orders of Mgr. Leblanc de 
Beaulieu; the great rose window is an empty 
hole against the sky. Nevertheless, how precious 
this fragment of a church still is! What master- 
pieces of grace and boldness are these two towers, 
unlike, but both so perfect, with their galleries, 
their arcades, their pinnacles, their bell towers 
and their stone spires. And what admirable carv- 
ings! There are, under the elegant canopies 



Facade of the Abbey of Saint-J ean-des-Viynes, 
Soissons. 



Soissons 213 

attached to each story of the towers, the images — - 
alas! too often mutilated by the Huguenots or by 
the Revolutionists — of the Apostles and the 
Evangelists; there is the crucified Christ upon 
the window bars of the great tower window; 
there are, above all, on the two sides of the rose 
window, the touching and expressive statues of 
Our Lady of Sorrow and of Saint John the Evan- 
gelist. 

Two of the galleries of the cloister have disap- 
peared. The other two present arcades of a 
charming design. Ornaments of rare delicacy 
frame the inner door. Heads of monsters decorate 
the gargoyles. About the capitals and upon the 
bases of the corbels are twined allegorical flowers 
of perfect execution: here the vines which recall 
the name of the abbey itself, there the ivy and 
the wormwood to which Saint John the Baptist, 
patron saint of the monastery, communicated the 
virtue of counteracting witchcraft; elsewhere the 
oak, the apple, the strawberry, the wild geranium, 
all the plants which in the Middle Ages were 
reputed to cure ills of the throat, for, until the 
last century, it needed but a pilgrimage to Saint- 
Jean-des-Vignes to be freed from quinsy. (Note 
23.) 

And this is all that one is allowed to see of the 
abbey of Saint- Jean-des-Vignes. Whoever is curi- 



214 The Spell of the Heart of Prance 

ous to become acquainted with the last remnants 
of the Renaissance cloister (a few arches and four 
very beautiful stone medallions) and to enter the 
ancient refectory of the abbey, will run against 
the veto of military authority. 

It is probable that the Adminstration of Fine 
Arts will without difficulty obtain permission 
that the public may have access to the courtyard 
where the little cloister stands. But it will doubt- 
less be more difficult to recapture from the War 
Department the refectory building, where it has 
been installed for a century. 

This refectory is a vaulted hall, forty meters 
long and divided into two naves by fine columns. 
Whoever wishes to obtain an idea of the beauty 
of this admirable structure may think of the 
refectory of Royaumont, today much disfigured, or 
even the refectory of the priory of Saint Martin 
in the Fields, now the Library of Arts and Trades, 
and whose character has been altered by useless 
daubs of paint. These two latter edifices belong to 
the thirteenth century. The refectory of Saint- 
Jean-des-Vignes seems to date from the fourteenth. 
Here may be found, as in all the halls of the same 
kind, the readers' stall hollowed in the thickness 
of the wall, and reached by several stone steps. 

A food storehouse has been installed in this 
refectory. To utifize the space, it has been divided 



Soissons 215 

into two stories by a floor which passes below 
the capitals of the columns. Here are piled boxes 
of canned goods, biscuits, bags of grain. In 
conformity with the military regulations, all 
the walls are covered, for a meter above the floor, 
with a thick layer of coal tar, so that the capitals, 
just above the second story floor, have disap- 
peared under this covering. The rest of the walls 
is simply covered with whitewash. At some 
unknown time the whitewash was removed from 
certain spots to uncover two pictures which appear 
to be contemporary with the building. One is 
stiU visible and represents the Resurrection. The 
other has almost completely disappeared. For- 
merly wooden shutters protected them from the 
curiosity of the soldiers employed in the store- 
house. They are now exposed to every insult. 
Perhaps other paintings exist xmder the white- 
wash. 

Under this great hall is a vaulted subterranean 
room, whose bays correspond to the bays of the 
refectory. It is likewise used for army provisions. 

This is the condition to which, in 1905, one 
of the most precious monuments of Gothic archi- 
tecture which exists in France is abandoned. 
And the vandals are not satisfied with secularizing 
the buildings, with tarring the capitals and with 
dooming the paintings to certain destruction. 



216 The Spell of the Heart of France 

By overloading the edifice they endanger its 
safety. 

The War Department is not responsible for all 
this vandalism. It has been assigned a Gothic 
hall in which to store its provisions. It has used 
it as well as it knew how; it has apphed to it the 
rules which are common to all military buildings; 
it is not the guardian of monuments of the past. 

This guardianship belongs to the Bureau of 
Historic Monuments; its responsibility is to take 
notice of and to save the refectory of Saint- 
Jean-des-Vignes. 

It is not possible to conceal the difficulties of 
the attempt. The Minister of War will consent 
to abandon this edifice only if he is furnished 
another provision storehouse in Soissons itseh. 
So a new building must be put up. Who will 
pay for it? The city of Soissons, interested in the 
preservation of a "precious monument of the 
arts," as the prefect of 1805 said, doubtless will 
not refuse to contribute to the expense. But the 
state must come to its aid. 

When, tomorrow, at some public sale, there 
shall be put up at auction some primitive of more 
or less certain authenticity, a hundred thousand 
francs wiU be spent to hang it in a room of the 
Louvre, and there will be glorification over the 
acquisition. Would it not be wiser and safer to 



Soissons 217 

preserve the paintings of the fourteenth century 
which decorate the refectory of Saint-Jean-des- 
Vignes, whose authenticity, I beheve, no one 
will ever dare to contest? With the same stroke, 
a magnificent bit of architecture will be saved. 
Who knows if we may not even see other medi- 
aeval paintings appear from under the whitewash? 
... In short, we shall have saved a precious 
work of Gothic art for France. And future cen- 
turies will draw a parallel between the house- 
wrecking bishop who destroyed the church of 
Saint-Jean-des-Vignes and the pious undersecre- 
tary of state who protected the refectory of the 
Joannist canons. (Note 24.) 



XIII 
BETZ 

At the bottom of a valley, 
There is a charming chateau 
"Whose adored mistress 
Is its most beautiful ornament; 
The charms of her countenance 
And the virtues of her heart 
Embelhsh nature 
And spread happiness. 

***** 

At the sound of her voice a limpid stream 

Will take a happier course; 

The most smiling verdure 

Will enchant all eyes; 

A scattered and dusky grove 

Planted by her beautiful hands, 

WiU cover with its shade 

Candor and beauty. 



THIS song, which was set to the tune, Que 
ne suis-je la fougere, was written by Louis 
Joseph de Bourbon-Conde. The "adored 
mistress" was Marie Catherine de Brignole, Prin- 
cess of Monaco. The ''charming chateau" was 
that of Betz, celebrated at that period because of 
the beauty of its gardens laid out in the EngUsh 
fashion. 

The chateau has disappeared; but the design 
of the park is not effaced; not all of the structures 

218 



Betz 219 

with which it was adorned by the caprice of the 
Princess of Monaco have perished. After a long 
period of neglect, the domain is today in safe 
hands: the remnants of the gardens of Betz 
are now safeguarded. Groves, ruins and temples 
here still evoke a memory of the imagination 
at once sUly, incoherent and deUghtful, which 
satisfied men and especially women on the eve 
of the French Revolution. 

Marie Christine de Brignole had married at 
eighteen a ro\i6 of forty, the former lover of her 
mother. The Parliament of Paris had divorced 
her from this brutal and jealous husband, and 
she had become the unconcealed mistress of 
Conde. Their relations were public. The Princess 
Hved at Paris in a hotel in the Rue Saint Domi- 
nique, beside the Palais Bourbon. She reigned 
at Chantilly. 

Conde was tender but faithless. He deceived 
his lady love, was desolated to see her unhappy, 
accused God of having given her too sensitive a 
heart and began over again. Still other cares 
troubled the Princess of Monaco: however great 
may then have been the toleration of the world and 
the ease of morals, the children of the Prince could 
not resign themselves to dissimulate the disdain 
which they felt for La Madame. The Princess 



^20 The Spell of the Heart of France 

of Bourbon amused herself one day by composing 
a tableau in which she put on the stage her father- 
in-law and the Princess; these two, who played 
the two principal parts, perceived the wicked 
allusions of the author only when they perceived 
the embarrassment of the spectators; but a 
family scene occiu-red as soon as the curtain 
dropped. Then the pubHc decided that the favorite 
was responsible for the quarrel which soon sepa- 
rated the Duke and the Duchess of Bourbon. . . . 
(Note 25.) 

La Madame had the wisdom to perceive that 
the moment had come to make a strategic retreat, 
and to seek a shelter against hostilities which, 
in the end, might have become perilous. It was 
necessary for her to find a property which was at 
the right distance from Chantilly and from Paris, 
*' neither too far nor too near," where she might 
be forgotten by the world, but where Conde 
could come to see her without difficulty. She 
chose Betz, near Crepy-en-Valois. 

The lords of Levignen had early built a strong- 
hold above the valley of Betz. Later another 
home had been constructed on an island formed 
by the Grivette, a tributary of the Ourcq. It 
was in this chateau, already rebuilt in the seven- 
teenth century, that Madame de Monaco 
estabHshed herself. A donjon, the two great 



Betz 221 

round towers which flanked the wings of the 
principal block, the waters which bathed the feet 
of the walls, gave the house an almost feudal 
aspect. But the iaterior was decorated in the 
taste of the day, wainscoted with delicate panels, 
oramented with charming furniture, paintings 
and precious objects of art. The buildings and the 
adornment of the park cost more than four 
milhons. 

The Princess of Monaco passed at Betz the 
happiest years of her life. She guided the labors 
of her architects, her sculptors and her gardeners. 
She played at farming. Her sons, from whom 
her husband had formerly separated her, came to 
make long visits with her. Conde, wiser with age, 
redoubled his tenderness. When he was obliged 
to travel, either to Dijon to preside over the 
States or to the camp of Saint Omer to direct the 
maneuvers of the royal army, he wrote to her 
at length, and the refrain of his letters was: 
"Would that I were at Betz!" As soon as his 
service at court or with the army permitted it, 
he hastened to the Princess : he brought rare books 
and pictures to enrich the chateau; he interested 
himself in the works undertaken for his friend. 
He advised the workmen and gave his opinion 
upon the plans. . . . 

Madame de Monaco renewed her youth in this 



222 The Spell of the Heart of Prance 

"rural retreat," and the years passed without 
lessening the grace of her countenance, without 
thickening her slender waist, without slowing her 
hght step. It is not an inhabitant of Betz who 
drew for us this portrait, it is Goethe, at Mayence, 
in 1792: ". . .The Princess of Monaco, declared 
favorite of the Prince of Conde, and the orna- 
ment of ChantiUy in its palmy days, appeared 
lively and charming. One could imagine nothing 
more gracious than this slender blondine, young, 
gay, and frivolous; not a man could have resisted 
her saUies. I observed her with entire freedom of 
mind and I was much surprised to meet the lively 
and joyous Philine, whom I had not expected to 
find there. . . ." Philine was then fifty-three 
years old. 

^ ^ 4fC 5j» ^ •!• SI* 

The great occupation of the Princess at Betz 
was to create a park in modem taste. She found 
in this her cares and her glory. The Due d'Har- 
coiU"t, former preceptor of the first son of Louis 
XVI, who had already distinguished himself by 
designing his park at La Colline near Caen, 
undertook to design the avenues, to form the 
vistas, to plan the buildings: in a certain sense 
he drew up the scenario of the garden. Hubert 
Robert made the plans of the temples and the 
ruins. The architect Le Gendre supervised the 



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PRINCESS OP MONACO 



Betz 228 

buildings. The site was adapted for the estabhsh- 
ment of an Enghsh garden: on the two banks of 
the Grivette rose httle wooded hills, and, thanks 
to the undulations of the landscape, sometimes 
gentle, sometimes brusque, it was there possible 
to mingle the ''pictiu'esque," the ''poetic" and 
the "romantic." The thickets were pierced by 
sinuous paths; pines and perfumed exotics varied 
the verdure of the hornbeams and the beeches; 
the course of the river, which spread out into a 
marshy meadow, was confined within sodded 
banks. The forest was thinned to allow the eye 
to perceive the surrounding fields, and there were 
scattered in the valley and through the woods 

Temples and tombs and rocks and caverns, 
The lesson of history and that of romance. 

Models were not lacking. Without speaking 
of the parks created in England by Kent and his 
disciples, there existed the admirable examples 
of Ermenonville, belonging to M. de Girardin, 
Limours, to the Countess de Brionne, Bel-CEil, 
to the Prince de Ligne, Maupertuis, to M. de 
Montesquiou, the Little Trianon and Bagatelle, 
Le MouUn-Joli of the engraver Watelet. . . . 
And at the same moment when Madame de 
Monaco was undertaking the construction of 
her garden, the financier Jean Joseph de La Bord^ 
was completing, upon the advice of Robert and 



224 The Spell of the Heart of France 

de Vernet, the construction of the admirable 
park of Mer6viUe. The chatelaine of Betz con- 
formed to the rules of the type. 

Possibly some day some one will write the 
history of these Enghsh gardens of the eighteenth 
century: no study would be more suitable to 
acquaint us with the contradictory sentiments and 
the confused thoughts which agitated society in 
the years which preceded 1789. The lectures of 
M. Jules Lemaitre and the penetrating book of 
M. Lasserre upon Romanticism have recently 
drawn attention to the disorders caused in the 
French body politic by the poison of Rousseau. 
To illustrate such remarks, nothing would be 
better than the plans and the structm-es of the 
parks composed in France from 1770 to 1789. 
We would there behold a mingling of pedantry 
and sentimentality, the most refined taste united 
to the most silly feeling, adorable reminiscences 
of classical antiquity mingled with the first 
abortions of romantic bric-a-brac. We would 
especially distinguish there the laborious artifices 
and the childish conventions in which the pre- 
tended lovers of nature became entangled. And 
I do not insist upon the prodigious disaccord 
between ideas and manners: for this I will send 
you to the charming discourse which the Count 
de Larborde puts at the beginning of his Descrip- 




STATUE OF LE NOTRE, AT CHANTILLY 



Betz ^25 

tion des nouveaux jar dins (1808), where he shows 
the fooUsh and joyous guests of the fashionable 
parks, laughing in "the valley of tombs," quarrel- 
ing upon "the bench of friendship" and bringing 
to the country the tastes and the habits of the 
city: "while praising the pure air of the fields, they 
rose at two o'clock in the afternoon, they gambled 
until four o'clock in the morning, and while they 
grew tender over the simplicity of country man- 
ners, the women plastered themselves with rouge 
and beauty spots, and wore panniers. ..." 

To tell the truth, the men of this period retained 
too much dehcacy of mind not to feel the ridicu- 
lousness of the inventions in which they found 
their delight. But fashion was master. The 
theorists of "modern gardens" endeavored to 
make headway against the excesses of the irregular 
type. In his agreeable poem, Les Jardins, which 
contains so many ingenious hnes, the worthy 
Abb6 Delille lavished the most judicious counsels 
on his contemporaries and endeavored to hold 
the balance equal between Kent and Le Notre. 

In his Essai sur les jardins, the modest Watelet, 
the creator of Le Moulin-Joli, recalled to good 
taste the constructors of park buildings, and 
pronounced it ill that one should build a mauso- 
leum to the memory of a favorite hound (an 
allusion to a grotto in the gardens of Stowe 



226 The Spell of the Heart of France 

which Lord Granville Temple had consecrated 
to the memory of Signor Fido, an Italian grey- 
hound); unluckily, he judged that a perfect, 
simple and '^ natural" structure for a park would 
be the true monastery of Heloise, and he imagined 
the inscription which it would have been necessary 
to carve ''upon a mjrrtle" — if the climate per- 
mitted it — in order to move young lady 
visitors. . . . Morel, the landscape architect 
of Ermenonville, did not hke fictitious construc- 
tions which assemble in a single locality all 
centuries and all nations. But, on the other hand, 
Carmontelle, the designer of the fantastic con- 
structions of Mousseaux, found that Morel's 
conceptions were deplorable: and neither of them 
was wrong. Horace Walpole, in his Essay on 
Gardens, praised the English gardens, but made 
fun of the abuse of buildings, of which hermitages 
seemed to him particularly inappropriate: ''It 
is ridiculous," said he, "to go to a corner of a 
garden to be melancholy," and he deplored that 
the hypothesis of irregularity should have brought 
people to a love for the crooked. Baron de 
Tschoudy, author of the article Bosquet, in the 
supplement to the Encyclopedie, wrote in regard 
to tombs, inevitable accessories of all English 
gardens: "A somber object may not be displeasing 
in a landscape by Salvator; it is too far from the 



Betz %n 

truth to sadden us; but what is its excuse? Do 
we go walking to be melancholy? Indeed, I 
would like much better to raise the tendrils of 
the ivy from the base of an overturned column, 
to read a touching inscription! How my heart 
would expand at the sight of a humble cabin, 
filled by happy people of my own kind, who 
would gayly spade their little enclosure and whose 
flocks would gambol about it! With what ecstasy 
would I listen to their songs in the silence of a 
beautiful evening! For is there anything more 
sweet than songs caused by happiness which one 
has given?" 

But all this did not discourage the proprietors 
of English parks from building hermitages, tombs, 
Gothic chapels, Tartar kiosks and Chinese 
bridges. ... In rambling through the gardens 
of Betz we will meet these structures and many 
others. 

* 
The design of the alleys at Betz has remained 
almost the same as it was in the eighteenth century. 
But, as the park has in the meantime belonged to 
owners who were little interested in preserving 
its former appearance, some of the woods have 
been cut, and places which were formerly bare 
are today grown up to copses. Rows of poplars 
which were assuredly not foreseen by the land- 



228 The Spell of the Heart of France 

scape gardeners of the Princess of Monaco grow 
on the banks of the Grivette. Many views have 
thus been modified and many vistas no longer 
exist. In addition, some of the old buildings 
have been destroyed, while only remnants remain 
of others. Fortunately, to guide us in our ramble 
and permit us to reconstruct the places as they 
were in the time of the Princess of Monaco, we 
possess a very complete description of the gardens. 
It was drawn up in verse by Cerutti and published 
January 1, 1792, under this title: Les jar dins de 
Betz, poeme accompagne de notes instructives sur 
les travaux champHres, sur les arts, les lois, les revo- 
lutions, la noblesse, le clerge, etc. . . ; fait en 1785 
par M. Cerutti et publie en 1792 par M. . . , 
editeur du "Breviaire philosophique du feu roi 
de Prusse^ This work, although in verse, and 
deplorable verse, contains a sufficiently exact 
list of the buildings of Betz, and the copious 
commentary in prose which accompanies the 
''poem" is sufficiently amusing. . . . But it will 
perhaps not be useless, before accepting Cerutti 
as a guide, to briefly recall his life and his writings. 
There exists a peremptory and dehghtful letter 
of the Marquise de Crequi about him: ''The 
administrator Cerutti has just finished his rhet- 
oric: he promised well, twenty years ago. He 
has not made a step forward during this time. 



Betz 229 

We see, as a matter of fact, beginnings which will 
become only miscarriages. In short, his verses 
have appeared prosaic to me and his prose pro- 
fusely ornamented poverty. Do not be astonished 
at his ecstasy in regard to the centm-y: he owes 
all to it." Here is the very man: the medal is 
sharply coined. 

Bom in Piedmont, Cerutti had entered the 
Company of Jesus. He taught at first with success 
in a college at Lyons. In other times, he would 
have remained the good college regent which 
he was at the beginning of his life and, as he 
possessed a certain brilliancy, he would have 
composed Latin verses in the manner of Father 
Rapin. Perhaps he would even have succeeded 
in the pulpit, for he had a fine bearing, an amiable 
countenance, a pleasing voice, measured gestures 
and brilliancy of mind. But he was gifted at the 
same time with exalted sensibility, and the 
century in which he hved seemed to promise 
everything to sensible men capable of exhaUng 
all their sensibility in prose and verse. C6rutti 
declaimed and rhymed during the whole of his 
life. 

While he was still professor at Lyons he had 
sent an essay on the duel to the Feast of Flora 
and another essay to the Academy of Dijon 
on this subject: ''Why have modern republics 



230 The Spell of the Heart of France 

acquired less splendor than the ancient republics?" 
Some people ascribed the dissertation of the 
Jesuit to Rousseau: it was the dawn of his glory. 
Then, to defend his company, Cerutti composed 
an Apologie de VInstitut des JSsuites. This work 
brought him the favor of the Dauphin: he came 
to court. The poor man became smitten with 
a beautiful lady who was cruel to him and he 
fell into the deepest melancholy. He emerged 
from it only to compose verses on charlatanism 
or chess, and to give his opinion on public affairs 
in short pamphlets. He was very friendly to new 
ideas : but, at need, he put his muse to the service 
of his noble protectresses. One of his works 
acquired a certain reputation: it was an intermi- 
nable apologue. The Eagle and the Owl, "a. fable 
written for a young prince whom one dared to 
blame for his love for science and letters." Grimm, 
though he was very indulgent to Cerutti, made a 
remark in regard to this fable which is not lacking 
in subtlety or truth: ''There is no sovereign 
philosopher, there is no celebrated man of letters, 
who has not received a tribute of distinguished 
homage from M. Cerutti. Let us congratulate 
philosophy on seeing the apologist of the Jesuits 
become today the panegyrist of the wise men of 
the century, praise the progress of illumination 
and counsel the kings to take as confessors only 



Betz 231 

their conscience, good works, or some philosophic 
poet. All this is perhaps not so far from a Jesuit 
as one might imagine, ..." When the Revolu- 
tion broke out, despite his poor health and the 
deafness with which he was afflicted, Cerutti, 
who, in accordance with the strong expression 
of the Marquise de Crequi, owed everything to 
the century, wished to pay his debt to it. He 
multiplied his pamphlets and booklets, collabo- 
rated in the discourses of Mirabeau, and it was 
he who pronounced the funeral oration of the 
orator in the church of Saint Eustache. He was 
elected a member of the Legislative Assembly, 
edited a little newspaper. La Feuille villageoise, 
whose purpose was to spread the spirit of the 
Revolution in the country districts, and died in 
1792. If he had lived a few months longer, the 
guillotine would doubtless have interrupted the 
ingenuous dream of this unfrocked Jesuit, maker 
of alexandrines. 

What led Cerutti to describe the gardens of 
Betz? I despaned of discovering what circum- 
stances might have placed him in the household 
of the Princess of Monaco, imtil I noticed, 
scattered through his poem, some verses which 
had been engraved in the Temple of Friendship 
at Betz. So Cerutti had been charged with 
composing the mottoes and the inscriptions 



232 The Spell of the Heart of France 

indispensable to every English garden. Such a 
task was well suited to his poetic talent : it seemed 
to agree less well with his philosophical convictions. 
But the philosopher required the poet, in accom- 
plishing his task, to tell the truth to the clergy 
as well as to the nobility. Thus Cerutti's con- 
science was appeased. Madame de Monaco, 
doubtless, was less satisfied. This perhaps explains 
why the poem was not published until 1792; 
the nation had then confiscated the chateau and 
the beautiful gardens, and the princess was 
living a life of exile at Mayence, where, for her 
glory, a better poet than Cerutti sketched her 
charming portrait in five lines. 

Let us follow the sinuous ways which lead across 
the park to the different ''scenes" invented for 
the amusement of the Princess of Monaco. The 
author of the poem, Les jardins de Betz, Cerutti, 
will revive for us the buildings which are gone. 
He is a prosy guide, somewhat of a ninny. But 
his heavy diatribes on priests, nobles and kings 
make the description of these childish fancies 
almost tragic. Behind the canvas so pleasingly 
covered by Hubert Robert, we might almost 
beheve we could hear the heavy tramp of the 
stage hands preparing for the change of scene. 

The chateau which was inhabited by the 



Betz 233 

Princess of Monaco stood on an island in the 
Grivette, quite near the village of Betz. Its 
towers were reflected in the river, on which 
floated white swans. Baskets of flowers orna- 
mented the banks. Farther up, the Grivette 
formed another isle, embelUshed with exotic 
shrubs and an oriental kiosk. A Chinese bridge 
joined it to the park, and little junks were moored 
to the margin. Pekin gave this kiosk and Nankin 
these hght boats. 

Nothing more remains of the chateau, which 
was sold during the Revolution and was totally 
demolished in 1817. There also remains nothing 
more of these Chinese fancies, by which the land- 
scape artists of the eighteenth century endeavored 
to recall the true origin of irregular gardens. The 
rotted planks of the Chinese bridge fell into the 
little river long ago. 

In vain also would we seek some trace of the 
''Druid Temple." To erect this curious construc- 
tion, this "little bosky oratory," there had been 
chosen for cutting young oaks of equal thickness 
and perfectly straight; they had been cut off 
at the same height and planted in a circle on an 
isolated mound; then this circular pahsade was 
crowned by a wooden cupola, whence were sus- 
pended pine cones and tufts of sacred mistletoe. 
On beholding this spectacle Cerutti burst forth: 



234 The Spell of the Heart of France 

Who would believe it? This place so pure and peaceful 
"Was the cruel nest of superstition! 
There formerly, frightening the shadows every evening, 
The Druid, surrounded by a hundred funereal torches, 
Strangled a mortal at the foot of Theutates. 

It is probable that the vision of human sacrifices 
obsessed neither the Princess of Monaco nor her 
friends, when they came to rest themselves in 
this sort of belvedere. But Cerutti is a philosopher ; 
and from the Druids his indignation spreads to 
all theocracies — Hebrew, Scandinavian, Roman. 
The priests of Theutates force him to think of 
the fagot fires of the Inquisition, of the crimes of 
monasticism and of the massacre of Saint Bar- 
tholomew. ... So much so that he can no longer 
restrain himself and passes to other structures: 

Cursing the incense bearer, I leave the fatal hill. 

Not far from the Druid Temple rose the ruin 
of a "Feudal Tower." It still stands. Time has 
somewhat enlarged the breaches provided by 
Hubert Robert when he drew the plan. But the 
ivy has grown for more than a century and it 
has given an almost venerable aspect to this fac- 
titious ruin. Everything here is imagined to show 
the ravage of centuries: the battlements have 
crumbled; the interior is empty, and we still see 
the traces of the floors which separated the va- 
rious stories; the stone fireplaces still remain 
attached to the walls. Over the lintel of a door, 
we may read in Gothic characters an inscription 



Betz 235 

in the purest "old French" of the eighteenth 
century. Below the tower there are dungeons. 
We love to imagine the blonde princess for whom 
this romantic ruin had been erected, coming to 
sit at the foot of her tower, and, in order to put 
her thoughts in harmony with the melancholy 
of this legendary site, reading, in a nice Httle 
book published by Sieur Cazin, bookseller of 
Rheims, some chivalrous romance by M. de 
Mayer, for example Genevieve de Cornouailles et le 
Damoisel sans nom. Even for us, this imitation 
is not without charm; its picturesqueness is 
agreeable; then we surprise here the first awaken- 
ing of the romantic imagination, the birth of the 
modern taste for the Middle Ages, and we regret 
a little the time when people amused themselves 
by fabricating entirely new ruins, without think- 
ing of restoring and completing the true ruins, 
those which are the work of time. ... As to 
C^rutti, the spectacle of this false donjon cannot 
distract him from his folly: 

Oh, castles of the oppressors! Oh, insulting palaces! 
Walls of tyranny, asyluMi of rapine, 
May you henceforth exist only in ruins! 
Instead of those barons who vexed the universe, 
We see on the remains of your deserted donjons 
Cruel wolves wander, together with hungry foxes: 
Under different names, they are of the same race. 

And he immediately adds a note of which I 
reproduce only these few lines; ''I am very far 



236 The Spell of the Heart of France 

from confounding modern castles with ancient 
ones, and the castellans of today with those of 
former times. The modern chateaux are not soiled 
with the blood of their vassals, but how many- 
are still bathed in their tears! . . . The castel- 
lans of today are, however, distinguished for the 
most part by a reputation for humanity, philoso- 
phy, pohteness. But let us plumb these shining 
exteriors. In these so human mortals, you will find 
. . . tyrants inflexible to their inferiors. Their 
philosophy is still less sohd than their human- 
ity. ... As to this politeness so vaunted by 
them, it is in the final analysis nothing but the 
art of graduating and seasoning scorn, so that 
one does not perceive it and even enjoys it. . . . 
They seem to except you, to distinguish you from 
the common herd; but try to emerge from it, 
and they will thrust you back." The whole bit 
would be worth quoting. It is beautiful, this 
outpouriQg of venom on account of a garden 
pavilion! 

In the midst of a thicket, in a place which was 
formerly open, a little pyramid stands on a high 
base. The inscription which it formerly bore in 
golden letters : 

L'iNDEPENDANCE AmERICAINE 

has disappeared. Reflections of C^rutti upon 
''the impetuous car of revolutions": events have 



Betz 237 

combined to give them a certain opportuneness 
here. 

The minghng of centuries and the diversity of 
allusions were one of the laws of the composition 
of an EngUsh garden. This is why, a little farther 
on, we penetrate to the "Valley of Tombs." 
A Latin inscription invites visitors to meditation 
and silence. An avenue of cypress, of larches, 
of pines, of junipers, "of all the family of melan- 
choly trees," led to the tombs and disposed the 
soul to meditation. Sepulchers "without worldly 
pomp and without curious artistry," bore naive 
epitaphs. Here were the tombs of Thybaud de 
Betz, dead on a Crusade, and of Adele de Crepy, 
who, having followed her knight to the Holy 
Land, brought back his mortal remains and "fell 
dead of grief, at the last stroke of the chisel which 
finished ornamenting this monument." The epi- 
taphs were engraved in Gothic characters; for 
"this Gothic form is something more romantic 
than the Greek and the Roman." It is needless 
to remark that these tombs were simple monu- 
ments intended for the ornamentation of the 
garden and that no lord of Betz was ever buried 
in this place. Some of the "melancholy trees" 
planted by the Princess of Monaco still remain 
among the thickets which have since grown in 
the "Valley of Tombs," which valley was an 



238 The Spell of the Heart of France 

''elevated esplanade": a pleasing incongruity of 
the friends of nature! As to the tombs, there 
remain only a few mutilated renmants of the stat- 
ues of the two recumbent figures. 



After the inevitable tombs, come the inevitable 
chapel and the inevitable hermitage. But the 
hermitage of Betz possessed this much originaUty, 
that it was inhabited by an actual hermit. 

The hermitage (today there remains of it no 
more than the lower part) was composed of two 
little rooms, one above the other. The upper one 
was a sort of a grotto used as an oratory. 

This monastic cave is a charming spot. 
There we see shining in a Uttle space, 
Transparent nacre and vermihon coral. 
A ray of sun which penetrates the grot 
Illumines it and seems a ray of grace. 

C^rutti immediately delivers to us the ''secrets" 
of this illumination. The walls of the grotto were 
pierced by Httle crevices, closed by bits of white, 
yellow, purple, violet, orange, green, blue and 
red glass. When the sun passed through these 
ghttering bits, its rays, tinged with all the colors, 
produced a magical light within the grotto. 
"One would beheve that the hermit is an enchanter 
who brings down the sun, or an astronomer who 
decomposes light." C^rutti adds judiciously: 



Betz 239 

''This curious phenomenon is, however, only 
child's play." 

Any other than Cerutti would perhaps have a 
word of pity for the poor man condemned to live 
in a home thus curiously lighted. But he does 
not love the ''pale cenobites"; he approaches 
them only to scandalize them by his frank 
speech. . . . 

At the foot of the crucifix, the hermit in his corner 
Celebrates his good fortune. . . in which I do not believe. 

The hermit beheved in it. He even beheved in 
it so well that he Uved in his hermitage through 
the whole time of the Revolution and died there 
in 1811, aged seventy-nine years, — having ob- 
served to the day of his death the rules set for 
him by the Princess of Monaco. In accordance 
with these rules, he was required to lead an edifying 
life, to appear at mass in the habit of his estate, 
to preserve seclusion and silence, to have no con- 
nection with the inhabitants of the neighboring 
villages, to cultivate flowers and give his surround- 
ings a pleasant appearance, finally to exhibit 
the hermitage, the grotto and the chapel to 
curious visitors and to watch that no one touched 
anything. He received a hundred francs a year, 
the use of a httle field and a little vegetable 
garden, every Saturday a pound of tallow candles, 
and in winter the right to collect dead branches 



240 The Spell of the Heart of France 

to warm himself. He was furnished in addition 
the necessary tools for kitchen and culture, two 
small fire pumps, a little furniture, a house for 
his chickens and the habit of a hermit. The 
tailor of Betz — his bill has been discovered — 
asked ninety-nine francs, five sous for dressing a 
hermit. Finally two cash boxes were placed, 
one in the chapel and the other in the hermitage, 
to receive the offerings of generous souls who 
wished to better the condition of the recluse. 

^ :): ^ ^ $ ^ H: 

By passing from ruins to tombs and from 
tombs to hermitages, we have reached the end of 
the park. Let us retrace our steps along the 
banks of the Grivette. Under the trees which 
shade its banks, the little river forms a little 
cascade, and the picture composed by the land- 
scape architect has here lost nothing of its pristine 
grace. Cerutti thus describes it: 

A vast mass of rocks arrests it in its course 
But, soon surmounting this frightful mass, 
The flood precipitates itself in a burning cascade. 
Then, resuming its march and its pompous detours, 
Etc. . . . 

Poor little Grivette! 

Upon the right bank of the stream stands a 
ravishing edifice. It is the Temple of Friendship, 
the most beautiful and, fortunately, the best 
preserved of the structures of Betz, which alone, 



Betz 241 

the chateau having been destroyed and the park 
disfigured, is sufficient to immortaUze here the 
memory of Madame de Monaco. Among the 
great trees which make an admirable frame for 
it, it presents the four columns and the triangular 
gable of its Neo-Greek fagade. It is the most 
charming and the most elegant of the Hubert 
Roberts — a marvelous setting for an opera by 
Gluck. As we ascend the grassy slope, we savor 
more vividly the exquisite proportions of the archi- 
tecture, the sovereign grace of the colonnade, 
the nobility of the gable, and also the strange 
beauty of the pines which enframe the master- 
piece. (These trees with red trunks and twisted 
shapes made an important part of the decoration 
of all English gardens. Introduced into Europe 
for the first time in the gardens of Lord Weymouth, 
in Kent, they are called by the landscapists of 
the times Weymouth pines, or more briefly. 
Lord pines.) 

Formerly, a wood of oaks extended on both 
sides of the temple; it was cut in the nineteenth 
century; the hillside is now partly denuded; this 
is very unfortunate, for the picture conceived by 
Hubert Robert has thus been altered. Neverthe- 
less, the essential feature of the landscape is 
intact, for the Weymouth pines still shelter the 
access to the peristyle. 



24^ The Spell of the Heart of France 

Under the colonnade, between two statues, 
opens a door of two leaves on which are sculptured 
fine garlands of flowers. Within the temple, 
along the naked wall, Ionic columns alternate 
with truncated shafts which once supported the 
busts of the heroes of friendship, and nothing is 
more original than the oblique flutings of these 
pedestals. Coffers of singular beauty decorate 
the ceihng, in the midst of which an opening allows 
Hght to enter. About the edifice runs a cornice, 
the design of which is at once rich and delicate. 
A charming marble bas-rehef decorates the top 
of the doorway. The rear wall curves back between 
two columns to form a little apse, raised by two 
steps: its curve is so pleasing, its dimensions are 
so just, the arch of the demi-cupola which shelters 
it is designed with so much grace, that we experi- 
ence, in contemplating these pure, supple and 
harmonious fines, that ravishment of eye and 
soul which only the spectacle of perfect architec- 
ture can produce. Before the steps is placed a 
round stone altar. In the fittle apse, we might 
have admired until recently a plaster reproduction 
of Love and Friendship, the celebrated group which 
Pigalle carved for Madame de Pompadour, the 
marble of which — much damaged — belongs to 
the Louvre. M. Rocheblave, who saw the statue 
in the place where the Princess of Monaco had 



Betz 243 

placed it, and who has written very interestingly 
about it (Note 26), affirms, and we can believe it, 
that this cast of the original, made and hghtly 
retouched by the sculptor Dejoux, was a unique 
work, infinitely precious. It has been removed 
from Betz ; but it will soon be replaced by another 
cast of the same group. The divinity will recom- 
pute its temple. 

On the pedestal of the statue appeared this 
quatrain : 

Wise friendship! love seeks your presence; 

Smitten with your sweetness, smitten with your constancy, 

It comes to implore you to embellish its bonds 

With aU the virtues which consecrate thine. 

And on the wall of the apse this was engraved : 

Pure and fertile source of happiness. 

Tender friendship! my heart rests with thee; 

The world where thou art not is a desert for me; 

Art thou in a desert? thou takest the place of this world. 

This last motto is by Cerutti. 

The cast of Love and Friendship is not the only 
object which has disappeared from the temple of 
Betz. There was also there a ''circular bed," 
where meditation invited 

Romantic Love and ambitious Hope 

to be seated. 

This "circular bed" was also a poetic invention. 
A document, discovered by M. de Segur in the 
archives of Beauvais, shows us that Cerutti was 



244 The Spell of the Heart of France 

commissioned to ''furnish" the Temple of Friend- 
ship. As his archaeological knowledge was insuffi- 
cient, he addressed himself to the author of the 
Voyage du jeune Anacharsis. We possess the 
reply of Abbe Barthelemy. The latter seems quite 
embarrassed: he states that the ancients prayed 
standing, on their knees or seated on the ground, 
and that there were no seats in the temples; he 
thinks that one might take as a model either the 
curule chair of the Senators, or the throne on 
which the gods were represented as seated, or 
even a bench, a sofa. . . . ''Besides," he ended, 
"I believe, hke M. Cerutti, that as friendship is a 
goddess of all times, we may furnish her as we will." 
Quatrains, sensibilities and puerilities, all these 
do not prevent the temple of Betz from being one. 
of the most perfect works of the Greco-Roman 
Renaissance of the last years of the eighteenth 
century. (Note 27.) In the gardens of the Little 
Trianon, Mique produced nothing more exquisite 
than this work of Le Roy. And how adorable they 
are, these httle monuments, supreme witnesses of 
classic tradition, suddenly revivified by the dis- 
coveries of the antiquaries, by the Voyages of 
the Count de Caylus, by the first excavations 
at Herculaneum and Pompeii! With what surety 
of taste, with what subtlety of imagination, have 
the fines and the forms of ancient art been 



Betz 245 

accommodated to the adornment of the northern 
landscape! It is the last flower of our architecture. 
It is necessary to hearken to and meditate upon 
the instruction, the eternal instruction given us 
by this temple so gracefully placed before the 
verdant meadows of a valley of the Ile-de-France. 
The caprice of a sentimental princess dedicated 
it to friendship. Let us dedicate it in our grateful 
thought to the strong and charming god whose 
decrees were respected and whose power was 
venerated for three centuries by poets and artists 
without an ingratitude, without a blasphemy. 
This sanctuary was doubtless the homage of a 
disappearing piety: already those who built it 
celebrated in the neighboring groves the rites of 
a new cult; there they deified disorder, ruin and 
melancholy; there they abandoned themselves to 
childish and dangerous superstitions; . already 
romanticism and exoticism mastered hearts and 
imaginations. The more reason for admiring and 
cherishing the last altars where men sacrificed to 
reason, order and beauty. Besides, behold: a 
century has elapsed; the false ruins are ruined; 
the false tombs are no more than rubbish; the 
Chinese kiosks have disappeared; yet, upon the 
hillside, the four Ionic columns still show the 
immortal grace of their spreading bases and their 
fine volutes. 



246 The Spell of the Heart of France 

Another stage, and the last, to the " Baths of the 
Princess." This rustic retreat had been constructed 
in the midst of the woods. The woods have been 
cut and now there remains no more than a single 
clump of trees in the midst of a meadow, over- 
shadowing the basin of a spring. Here were 
formerly placed renanants of sculpture in the 
antique fashion. 

Marbles broken and dispersed without arrangement. 

l(e :)t ^ :it :fc :{e :{e 

The Graces sometimes came to rest themselves there. 

»H >i( )|t ^ ^ ^ 3{c 

Seated near these benches, we easily forget ourselves; 
Voluptuousness follows the shadow and melancholy. . . . 

Melancholy was not the only visitor to this 
charming retreat. Let us rather hsten to the 
Prince de Ligne describing the "baths" of an 
English garden. His prose will console us for the 
verses of Cerutti: ''Women love to be deceived, 
perhaps that they may sometimes avenge them- 
selves for it. Occupy yourselves with them in 
your gardens. Manage, stroll with, amuse this 
charming sex; let the walks be well beaten, that 
they may not dampen their pretty feet, and let 
irregular, narrow, shaded paths, odoriferous of 
roses, jasmines, orange blossoms, violets and 
honeysuckles, coax these ladies to the bath or to 
repose, where they find their fancy work, their 
knitting, their filet and especially their black 



Bet2f M7 

writing desk where sand or something else is 

always lacking, but which contains the secrets 

unknown to lovers and husbands, and which, 

placed upon their knees, is useful to them in 

writing hes with a crow's plume." 

With this pleasing picture, let us leave the 

gardens of Betz. 

******* 

I continued to read the Coup d'odl sur les 
Jardins of the Prince de Ligne, whence are 
extracted the pretty things which I have just 
quoted, and I wish to reproduce the ending of 
this work, which is the whole philosophy of the 
English garden. 

"Happy, finally, if I have been able to succeed 
(the Prince de Ligne did not content himseK with 
writing about gardens; he had transformed a part 
of the park of Bel-Oeil in the new fashion), if, 
in embellishing nature, or rather in approaching 
her, let us rather say in making her felt, I could 
give taste for her! From our gardens, as I have 
announced, she would lead us elsewhere; our 
minds would no longer have recourse to other 
powers than her; our purer hearts would be the 
most precious temples that could be dedicated to 
her. Our souls would be warmed by her merit, 
truth would retiun to dwell among us. Justice 
would quit the heavens, and, a hundred times more 



248 The Spell of the Heart of France 

happy than in Olympus, the gods would pray 
men to receive them among themselves." 

In the midst of their philosophical and rural 
amusements, while they ''embellished" the woods 
of Betz and purified their hearts by tasting nature, 
the Princess of Monaco and the Prince of Conde 
doubtless spoke similar words. 

Nevertheless the omniscient gods remain in 
Olympus: they knew Cerutti and foresaw the 
morrow. 

It is just this which gives a singular melancholy 
to the gardens which were laid out in France on 
the eve of the Revolution, a true melancholy, a 
profound melancholy, no longer the Hght and 
voluptuous melancholy with which the romantic 
"friends of nature" pleased themselves. It was 
scarcely five years after the Princess of Monaco 
had finished designing and ornamenting her 
gardens when it was necessary for her to abandon 
everything to follow Conde and partake with 
him the perils, the sufferings and the mortifications 
of emigration, to face the privations of the hfe 
of the camp and the humiliations of defeat, to 
flee, always to flee across Europe before the 
victorious Revolution, and to learn at each stage 
of the bloody death of a relative or a friend. 
Such memories kill the smile awakened by the 
childishness of the structures scattered through 



Betz 249 

the gardens of Betz ; they communicate a touching 
grace to the allegories of the Temple of Friend- 
ship ; they envelop the entire park with a touching 
sadness. (Note 28.) 



XIV 
CHANTILLY 

I — THE HOUSE OF SYLVIE 

THE most charming part of the gardens of 
Chantilly hes behind the Chateau d'Enghien 
and is called the Park of Sylvie, ia memory 
of Marie FeHce Orsini, the wife of Henri II de 
Montmorency, the "Sylvie" of Theophile. On 
the site of the httle house where the Duchess had 
received and sheltered the proscribed poet, the great 
Cond^ built a pavihon, and pierced the neigh- 
boring woods with ''superb alleys"; his son, Henri 
Jules, added to it the amusement of a labyrinth. 

The park and the house of Sylvie have been 
reconstructed in our day at the order of the Due 
d'Aumale. Overarching avenues lead to the 
pavilion, which we perceive through a curtaia of 
verdure as soon as we pass the gate of honor of the 
chateau. Behind the httle structure, an elegant 
trellis encloses regular parterres, and the picture 
thus composed almost reproduced the picture of 
the house of Sylvie as it is shown to us by an 
engraving of Perelle. 

The Due d'Aumale has enlarged the pavihon 

250 



Chantilly 251 

of the seventeenth century by a lovely round 
hall, decorated by beautiful carved wainscotings, 
removed from one of the hunting lodges of the 
forest of Dreux. The other rooms are ornamented 
with Chinese sUks and lacquers, with Beauvais and 
Gobelins tapestries, with precious furniture and 
various hunting pictiu'es. We see there also two 
modem paintings by Ohvier Merson, one repre- 
senting Theophile and Sylvie, the other Mile, de 
Clermont and M. de Melun; they recall two famous 
chapters of the chronicles of Chantilly. The first 
belongs to history, for nothing is more certain than 
the misadventure of the unfortunate Theophile. 
The second is known to us only from a novel of 
Madame de GenMs in which, for lack of documents, 
it is difficult to decide which parts are due to the 
imagination of the author; we might even inquire 
if this moving and tragic anecdote is anything 
more than simple romantic fiction. 

Of these two stories, let us call up first the most 
distant, that which gave to the charming wood of 
Chantilly the adornment of a delightful name and 

of some elegant verses. 

******* 

In 1623, when Theophile composed his odes on 
the Maison de Sylvie, Chantilly belonged to Henri 
II de Montmorency, grandson of the grand con- 
stable Anne de Montmorency, and to his wife 



252 The Spell of the Heart of France 

Marie Felice Orsini. Their tragic destiny is well 
known, how the Duke, involved by Gaston 
d'Orleans in a foolish prank, lost his head in 1632 
and how the Duchess went to hide her tears and 
her mourning with the Visitandines de Moulins. 
But at this time they hved happy and powerful in 
the most beautiful of the residences of France 
and everything smiled on their youth; he was 
twenty-nine years old; she was twenty-four. 
Louis XIII continued toward Henri II the great 
friendship which Henri IV had always witnessed 
toward his "crony," Henri I de Montmorency. 
Like his father he often came to Chantilly. 

The chateau, built by Pierre Chambiges for the 
constable Anne de Montmorency, on the founda- 
tions of the old feudal fortress, decorated by the 
greatest artists of the Renaissance, was still being 
embellished day by day : the original gardens, laid 
out to the west of the chateau and consisting of a 
few flower beds, had been enlarged. In this mag- 
nificent house the Duke held a most brilliant court : 
he was, says Tallemant, "brave, rich, gallant, 
liberal, danced well, sat well on horseback and 
always had men of brains in his employ, who made 
verses for him, who conversed with him about a 
milUon things, and who told him what decisions 
it was necessary to make on the matters which 
happened in those times." 



Chantilly 253 

Among these "men of brains/' who ate the 
bread of the Due de Montmorency, the most 
celebrated was the poet Theophile de Viau, a 
native of Clairac sur le Lot, a Huguenot and a 
"cadet of Gascony. " 

Under Henri IV, men of his reUgion and of his 
country were well received at court: it was under 
"the B6arnais" that Paris commenced to dislike 
them. The young man from the region of Agen 
had therefore left his little paternal manor and 
settled in the capital to seek his fortune when he 
was twenty years old, in 1610. The assassination 
of the King must have shaken his hopes for a 
moment. But Theophile was soon assured of the 
protection of the Due de Montmorency; he found 
means to retain it in the midst of the frightful 
catastrophes of his existence. In any case, this 
sort of domesticity did not weigh too heavily on 
his shoulders, for he said to his master: 

Now, I am very happy in your obedience. 
In my captivity I have much Ucense, 
And any other than you would end by tiring 
Of giving so much freedom to a serf so hbertine. 

The fame of the poet Theophile has suffered 
much from two lines by Boileau: 

... To prefer Theophile to Malherbe or to Racan 
And the fake money of Tasso to the pure gold of Virgil. 

So, when the Romanticists began to revive 
the classics and to discover far-distant ancestors 



254 The Spell of the Heart of France 

in old French literature, they thought of Theo- 
phile: Boileau himself pointed him out to them. 
In Les Grotesques, Gautier rehabiUtated him and 
called him a "truly great poet," esteeming that 
one cannot make bad verses when one bears the 
glorious Christian name of Th^ophile. To com- 
pletely demonstrate this to us, he quoted several 
pieces by his namesake which he abridged and 
even tastefully corrected — a stratagem which 
revolted the scrupulous Sainte-Beuve. To tell 
the truth, now that we are free from romantic 
prejudices, it is difficult for us not to think that 
on this occasion, as on many others, Boileau was 
right. Among the poets of the time of Louis XIII, 
Th^ophile is perhaps the one whom we now read 
with the least pleasure. We find in him neither 
the beauty, the force and the style of Malherbe, 
nor that so lively sentiment for nature which 
gives so much value to various bits by Racan, 
nor the vigorous local color of Saint Amant. He 
shows a facile and sometimes brilliant imagina- 
tion; but he lacks taste and restraint in a con- 
tinuous and desolating fashion. La Bruyere has 
finely expressed this in comparing Theophile 
with Malherbe: ''The other (Theophile), without 
choice, without exactness, with a free and unequal 
pen, overloads his descriptions too much, empha- 
sizes the details ; he makes a dissection ; sometimes 



Chantilly ^55 

he paints, he exaggerates, he overpasses the truth 
of nature; he makes a romance of it." 

Theophile, who had a brilhant mind, rendered 
justice to Malherbe; but he decorated with the 
name of originahty his distaste for labor, his scorn 
of rules: 

Let him who will imitate the marvels of others. 

Malherbe has done very well, but he did it for himself. 
******* 

I love his fame and not his lesson. 
* * * * 

I know some who make verses only in the modern fashion, 

Who seek Phoebus at mid-day with a lantern, 

Who scratch their French so much that they tear it all to tatters, 

Blaming everything which is easy only to their own taste. 
******* 

Rules displease me, I vxrite confusedly; 

A good mind never does anything except easily. 

I wish to make verses which shall not be constrained, 

To send forth my mind beyond petty designs, 

To seek out secret places where nothing displeases me, 

To meditate at leisure, to dream quite at my ease, 

To waste a whole hour in admiring myself in the water. 

To hear, as if in a dream, the flowing of a brook. 

To write within a wood, to interrupt myself, to be silent by myself, 

To compose a quatrain without thinking of doing it. 

Here are eight Unes which make us think of La 
Fontaine, in accent and in sentiment. But we 
would be embarrassed if we had to find twenty 
others as well turned in all the works of Theophile. 
What emphatic odes! What fastidious elegies! 
What feeble sonnets! Without the divine gift, 
this kind of nonchalance leads the poet either to 
platitudes or to disorder. Theophile is not lyrical. 
Here and there, by fits and starts, a few striking 



^56 The Spell of the Heart of France 

images appear, but the strophes come forth with- 
out grace, with terrible monotony. His love poems 
are frozen: gallantry mingled with sensuality 
takes the place of passion with him, and while it 
sometimes inspires a few lines which are happy by 
reason of gentleness or voluptuousness, most often 
they are poor nonsense. His best odes, like Matin 
or Solitude, whence we may select a few delicately 
shaded lines, repel us as a whole because of his 
fashion of painting too minutely, too dryly, too 
exactly. ... 

So, what caused the great fame of Theophile in 
the seventeenth century and later gave him the 
indulgence of the Romanticists, was much less his 
poetic talent than the renown of his adventures. 
As Gautier took care to inform us, this poor devil 
was born ''under a mad star"; he knew exile and 
prison, he just escaped being burned ahve for 
atheism and hbertinage. 

In a page of charming prose (Th^ophile's prose 
is better than his verse) the poet has told us his 
taste and his philosophy: "One must have a 
passion not only for men of virtue, for beautiful 
women, but also for all sorts of beautiful things. 
I love a fine day, clear fountains, the sight of 
mountains, the spread of a wide plain, beautiful 
forests; the ocean, its calms, its swells, its rocky 
shores; I love also all which more particularly 




THEOPHILE DE VIAU 



Chantilly 257 

touches the senses: music, flowers, fine clothes, 
hunting, blooded horses, sweet smells, good cheer; 
but my desires cling to all these only as a pleasure 
and not as a labor; when one or another of these 
diversions entirely occupies a soul, it passes from 
affection to madness and brutality; the strongest 
passion which I can have never holds me so 
strongly that I cannot quit it in a day. If I love, 
it is as much as I am loved, and, as neither nature 
nor fortune has given me much power to please, 
this passion with me has never continued very 
long either its pleasure or its pain. I cling more 
closely to study and to good cheer than to aU the 
rest. Books have sometimes tired me, but they 
have never worn me out, and wine has often 
rejoiced me, but never intoxicated. ..." [Once 
more the memory of La Fontaine crosses our minds 
and we recall The Hymn of Passion at the end of 
Psyche.] Theophile is thus a perfect Epicurean 
by birth and by principle, an Epicurean in the 
diversity and the brevity of his enjoyments, an 
Epicurean in the prudent and wise administration 
of his pleasures. 

Did he carry further than he admits the practice 
of doctrine, and freedom of manners? Did he use 
the free and obscene speech which has been 
ascribed to him? Had he still other passions of 
which he says nothing in this public confession? 



258 The Spell of the Heart of France 

It is only necessary to read Tallemant to be 
instructed as to the way of living common to 
libertines at the beginning of the seventeenth 
century, and to judge that, even if Theophile 
practiced all the vices which his enemies have 
ascribed to him, fate was nevertheless very cruel 
in inflicting on him a punishment which so many 
others might then have merited. 

The poet's misfortune was to unloose against 
himseK the ire of some Jesuits who — for reasons 
which have remained obscure — sought for his 
destruction with frenzied zeal. Imprudence in 
writing and speaking had already compromised 
him: when exiled for the first time, he had had to 
seek a refuge in Gascony, in Languedoc, even to 
take refuge in England for several months. But 
he had been recalled and, following an august 
example, and thinking that Paris was well worth 
a mass, he had abjured Calvinism: he could 
thenceforth believe himself in safety. Then biirst 
the storm. A collection of licentious and sacri- 
legious poetry appeared at Paris in 1622 under the 
title of Parnasse Satyrique; certain pieces were 
attributed to Theophile, who endeavored, but in 
vain, to disavow the publication. A year after, 
he was accused before Parliament and con- 
demned, in contumacy, to be burned aUve. On 
the eve of his sentence, Father Garasse had pub- 



Chantilly 259 

lished a formidable quarto entitled La Doctrine 
curieuse des heaux esprits de ce temps, in which were 
heaped up calumnies, insults and invectives 
against Th^ophile and his disciples, whom the 
Jesuit called "the school of young calves." While 
he was being executed in effigy upon the Place de 
Gr^ve, and while the Jesuits aroused the court and 
the magistrates against him, Theophile prudently 
escaped to Chantilly and from there set out for the 
frontier of the kingdom. But he was arrested near 
Saint-Quentin, brought back to Paris, thrown into 
the prison of Ravaillac. He remained there two 
years waiting for a new trial. The Jesuits were 
in charge of the proceedings and the investigation. 
The poet was again foimd guilty. But this time 
the sentence was less rigorous: it was banishment. 
He died two years later, at the age of thirty-six. 

During these trials, the Duke and Duchess 
de Montmorency had not ceased to interest 
themselves in their protege. More than once the 
Duke had intervened in his favor, but without 
success. After the first sentence he gave him 
asylum at Chantilly in a "cool haU" built in the 
woods at the end of the pool. It was the memories 
of this retreat that the poet later evoked in his 
prison, to make them the subject of the ten little 
odes which he entitled, La Maison de Sylvie. 



260 The Spell of the Heart of Prance 

I doubt that the odes of the Maison de Sylvie 
are superior to the other works of Theophile. 
However, if any one asked me: "What must I 
read by Theophile?" I would reply to him: 
"La Maison de Sylvie, on condition that you read 
it at ChantiUy beside the pool." The great poets 
have sometimes added a special grace or nobihty 
to the landscapes which they have described. 
But it is also true that ancient verses, whose 
attractiveness seems lost today, reassume an 
indescribable savor in the very places which have 
formerly inspired them. The poet sometimes 
makes us better feel the beauty of nature; but by 
a mysterious sorcery, nature can retimi a breath 
of life to dead poems. 

To leave, before dying, 

The living features of a painting 

Which can never perish 

Except by the loss of nature, 

I pass golden pencils 

Over the most revered spots 

Where virtue takes refuge, 

Whose door was open to me 

To put my head in shelter. 

When they burned my effigy. 

Poor rhymer, they are indeed effaced, the hues 
of your "golden pencils"! You promised yourseh 
immortahty, you promised it to Sylvie: 

Thus, under modest vows 

My verses promise Sylvie 

That charming fame which posterity 

CaUs a second life; 



Chantilly mi 

But you added with more reason: 

What if my writings, scorned, 
Cannot be authorized 
As witnesses of her glory, 
These streams, these woods. 
Will assume souls and voices, 
To preserve its memory. 

Such has been fate : it is the soul and the voices 
of the waters, the woods and the rocks which 
preserve today the memory of the beautiful 
Itahan princess and her poor devil of a poet! 

It is not for the pm-e beauty of the verses 
(which, however, do not lack grace), it is for the 
elegance of the picture which they evoke from 
far away, from very far away, that we love today 
to read once more these Hnes: 

One evening when the salty waves 

Lent their soft bed 

To the four red coursers 

Which are yoked by the sun, 

I bent my eyes upon the edge 

Of a bed where the Naiad sleeps. 

And, watching Sylvie fish, 

I saw the fishes fight 

To see which would soonest lose its life 

In honor of her fishhooks. 

Warning against noise with one hand 

And throwing her hne with the other. 

She causes that, at the onset of night. 

The day should decHne more sweetly. 

The Sim feared to light her 

And feared to go away; 

The stars did not dare to appear. 

The waves did not dare to ripple. 

The zephyr did not dare to pass. 

The very grass restrained its growing. 

(This is the scene which M. Oliver Merson 
desired to represent upon one of the walls of 



^62 The Spell of the Heart of France 

Sylvie's pavilion; I do not dare to affirm that he 
rendered all its charm.) 

Despite a very obscure and very pretentious 
mythological machinery, we may still enjoy the 
Tritons transformed into a troop of white deer by 
a single glance of Sylvie, and gamboling timidly 
among the thickets of the wood: 

Their hearts, deprived of blood by fear. 

Can only with timidity 

Behold the sky or trample on the earth. ' 

(Here is one of those pictures which abound in 
Th^ophile and disconcert the reader, even when 
the coolness of the charming grove disposes him 
to every indulgence.) 

We will also discover an Albanesque grace in a 
combat of Loves and Nereids in the waters of the 
pool: 

Now together, now scattered, 

They shine in this dark veil 

And beneath the waves which they have pierced 

Allow their shadow to disappear; 

Sometimes in a clear night, 

Which shines with the fire of their eyes. 

Without any shadow of clouds, 

Diana quits her swain 

And goes down below to swim 

With her naked stars. 

But the plays of the Naiads are not the only 
visions which present themselves to the memory 
of the prisoner in the inky dungeon where the 
hatred of Father Garasse has condemned him 



Chantilly 26S 

to rhyme his idyls. He remembers that one day 
Thyrsis, whom he loves with a "chaste and faith- 
ful friendship," came to visit him at Chantilly 
and to tell him a frightful and interminable 
nightmare in which were announced all his future 
misfortunes. This episode might appear super- 
fluous if it did not give Theophile the opportunity 
to estabhsh in eleven hnes the innocence of his 
manners, an opportune apology after the defama- 
tions of the Jesuit. . . . Soon, casting aside these 
unpleasant images, he returns to the marvels of 
the "enchanted park"; he sings the perfume of 
the flowers, the glances of his mistress, the coolness 
of the waters, the graces of the spring, the fecun- 
dity of nature and the concert of birds which 
salutes Sylvie in the woods. . . . And the ode 
terminates by an abrupt flattery addressed to the 
King. But he has not yet exhausted the whole 
chaplet of lovable remembrances; he diverts 
himself by imagining the song of the nightingales, 
and in the darkness of his prison, it is always 
Chantilly that he sees. How sad that a better 
poet might not have treated this charming 
thought! 

Forth from my dark tower 

My soul sends out its rays which pierce 

To this park which the eyes of day 

Traverse with so much difficulty. 

My senses have the whole picture of it: 

I feel the flowers at the edge of the water. 



^64 The Spell of the Heart of France 

I sense the coolness which endews them. 
The princess comes to sit there. 
I see, as she goes there in the evening, 
How the day flees and respects her. 

The last ode is a promenade about the pool, and, 
while lacking in poetic beauty, it contains some top- 
ographical indications which it would be amusing 
to verify with the aid of the plans and the docu- 
ments of the archives. There is a question there 
of a "lodge today deserted" where Alcandre once 
came to enjoy solitude. Alcandre is Henri IV, 
and we thus know the place of the "King's 
Garden," a retreat where Henri IV loved to pass 
his time, when he came to Chantilly. Then 
Theophile leaves on the left a thick wood favorable 
for lovers' meetings, a "quarter for the Faun 
and for the Satyr," and stops at a chapel, probably 
the little chapel of Saint Paul, which still exists 
today; he remains there a long time and prays the 
Lord, with the fervor of a poor poet persecuted 
by the Jesuits and accused of atheism; but words, 
aheady sufficiently undisciplined when he wishes 
to employ them to sing the sport of the nymphs, 
refuse to obey him when he seizes the harp of 
David: his prayer is a miracle of platitude. . . . 

And if, following my advice, you shall one day 
read La Maison de Sylvie under the trees of 
Chantilly, perhaps, despite its poverty of style 
and monotony of rhymes, you may still find some 




THE GREAT CONDE 



Chantilly ^65 

pleasure there, in spite of the disdain of Boileau, 
in spite of the enthusiasms of Gautier. 

II MADEMOISELLE DE CLERMONT 

We are in 1724. A century has elapsed since 
the day when the proscribed poet found asylum in 
a little house built at the extremity of the pool, 
and now there remains hardly a remnant of the 
Chantilly of the Montmorencies. Le Notre and 
Mansart have been here. Immense regular gar- 
dens, traversed by canals, decorated with statues 
and fountains, have replaced the modest garden 
plots of the Renaissance. The swelling woods 
which neighbored the chateau are transformed to 
a majestically clipped park. Of the ancient build- 
ings, the great Conde has allowed only the little 
chateau to remain, and he has arranged the apart- 
ments of even this in a new fashion. For the old 
manor house which the architects of the sixteenth 
century had transformed into a luxurious, elegant 
and picturesque residence, he has substituted a 
veritable palace, with grand though monotonous 
f agades, flanked with sufficiently disgraceful pepper 
boxes. He has built the orangery and the theater, 
and created a mass of cascades, basins and foun- 
tains which rival Versailles. Henri Jules has con- 
tinued the work of his father, built a house for his 
gentlemen in place of the farm of Bucan, estab- 



266 The Spell of the Heart of France 

lished a magnificent menagerie at Vineuil, designed 
the labyrinth of Sylvie's grove and dispersed 
throughout the park a multitude of marbles copied 
from the antique. Now the master of Chantilly is 
the Due de Bourbon, Monsieur le Due, Prime 
Minister of the King; he also is a great lover of 
gardens and the buildings; he transforms the 
chapel, he demolishes and reconstructs the three 
faces of the interior court of the chateau, and he 
confides to Jean Aubert the task of finishing the 
construction of the Great Stables, commenced by 
Mansart. (Note 29.) 

Chantilly is then, after Versailles and Marly, 
the most beautiful of the residences of France. 
It is also the theater of the most sumptuous 
festivals. M. le Due there spends royally an 
immense fortune, which is still growing from 
operations in the funds. His mistress, Agnes de 
Pleneuf , Marquise de Prie, holds a veritable court 
there. 

The King comes to pass two months at Chantilly 
and, every day, he is offered "the diversion of 
stag hunting or wild boar hunting." The evenings 
are reserved for the opera, for the comedy and 
for the dance. The gazettes of Paris describe with 
a thousand details the hecatombs of wild boars, 
the lansquenet parties and the suppers at which 
shine the three sisters of M. le Due, Miles, de 




From a drawing by Blanche McManus 

CHATEAU OF CHANTILLY 



Chantilly 267 

Charolais, de Clermont and de Sens. The peddlers 
offer in the streets the list of expert beauties 
whom chance, added by Madame de Prie, has 
put in the path of the young King, and for whom 
the young King has not lusted. 

On August 30, 1724, one of the friends of the 
Due de Bourbon, the Due de Melun, is killed in 
one of the hunts given in honor of the King. Here 
is the story from the gazettes: '^ Towards seven 
o'clock in the evening, half a league from the 
chateau, the Due de Melun, riding at a gallop 
in one of the forest ways, was wounded by the 
stag which was being tracked and which was 
almost at bay. The blow which he gave in passing 
was so hard that horse and horseman were thrown. 
The Due de Melun was aided at first by the Due 
de Bourbon and the Comte de Clermont. Sieur 
Flandin du Montblanc, surgeon to the King, 
gave him first aid and had him carried to the 
chateau where he died today, the 31st, at five 
o'clock in the morning, in the thirtieth year of his 
age, after having received all the sacraments and 
made his will." 

This tragic event moves the guests of the 
chateau, for the Due de Melun is related to all 
the great families of the kingdom. The King sheds 
a few tears and talks of leaving the same evening. 
But he is made to understand that so sudden a 



268 The Spell of the Heart of France 

departure will be interpreted in a fashion not very 
complimentary to the Prime Minister. He con- 
sents to remain two days longer at Chantilly and 
retm-ns to Versailles. 

Madame de Genhs is the author of a historical 
novel entitled Mademoiselle de Clermont. In it 
she relates that this princess had secretly married 
the Due de Melun eight days before the accident 
which led to his death. Of the history of the 
amours of Mile, de Clermont and M. de Melun, 
she had composed a touching and dramatic Uttle 
story. 

At the bottom of the first page of this work she 
puts the following note: "The substance of this 
history, and almost all the details which it con- 
tains, are true; the author received them from a 
person (the late Marquise de Puisieulx-Sillery) 
who was as noteworthy for the sincerity of her 
character as for the superiority of her mind, and 
whom Mile, de Clermont honored for twenty 
years, up to the day of her death, with her most 
intimate friendship. It was at ChantiUy itseK 
and in the fatal alley, which still bears the name 
of Melun, that this story was told for the first 
time to the author, who then wrote down its 
principal features and afterward forgot this little 
manuscript for thirty years. It was neither 



Chantilly 269 

finished, nor written for the pubhc^ but no historic 
detail has been excised." 

Is not this merely one of those subterfuges 
which romancers use to persuade us that they 
have "invented nothing" and to give us the illu- 
sion that it ''really happened"? Or did Madame de 
Genhs really receive the confidences of a well- 
informed old lady? 

First, we must note that if the author wished 
to mystify her readers, she succeeded on this 
occasion. When the Due d'Aumale had Mile, 
de Clermont and M. de Melun painted as a 
pendant to Theophile and Sylvie, he accepted 
the truth of the story told by Madame de Genlis. 
It may possibly be said that the Due d'Aumale 
could not refuse such a species of posthumous 
homage to the tutor of Louis Philippe. But all 
the historians who have written of Chantilly 
have in turn told the story of the adventure of 
Mile, de Clermont, without even discussing its 
probability. . . . And now let us read the novel 
of Madame de Genlis. 

It is a short and very agreeable task. The 
contemporaries of Madame de Genlis united in 
considering Mademoiselle de Clermont as her 
masterpiece and as a masterpiece. On the first 
point, I am ready to believe them; I cannot 
compare Mademoiselle de Clermont with the 



^70 The Spell of the Heart of France 

innumerable romances, tales and novels of the 
same author: I do not know them. As a child, 
I read Les Veillees du Chateau, and I cannot say 
today if it is necessary to set them above the 
similar works of Bouilly and of Berquin. As to 
the Souvenirs de Felicie, it has always seemed to 
me a sufficiently diverting book, full of doubtful 
anecdotes and of untruthful portraits, but in 
which the author shows her true self, with all 
her vanities of a woman and all her ridiculous 
traits as a wiiter. Is Mademoiselle de Clermont 
a masterpiece? Perhaps it was, but it is no longer. 
It remains a deUghtf ul book. It has great merits : 
marvelous rapidity, perfect skill and ease in the 
knitting together of the different episodes, a 
facile, supple and natural way of telling. If we 
confine ourselves to the composition of the work, 
it is a model: neither Merimee nor Maupassant 
has written anything more concise or more 
pohshed. Without doubt, the style of Madame 
de Genlis seems terribly out of date today; her 
simple, Hmpid, perfectly correct language entirely 
lacks accent; her somewhat vague expressions 
have today a trace of age and colorlessness; in 
the tragic passages she exasperates us a little by 
the abuse of points of suspense; finally we are 
sometimes tired out by the lazy sensibility of the 
writer, the simplicity of the maxims which she 



Chantilly 271 

inserts in her narration, her childish efforts to 
give a moral appearance to the most passionate 
of adventiu-es; we discover too often the author of 
Les Veillees du Chateau in a story which we would 
have preferred to have told by the author of La 
Chartreuse de Parme. But the pleasure of a well- 
written story is so vivid that even in spite of the 
affectations, the artifices and the childishness, 
we still feel the emotion of the drama. 

The two principals of the story are Mademoiselle 
de Clermont, sister of the Due de Bourbon, and 
the Due de Melun. 

"Mile, de Clermont received from nature and 
from fortune all the gifts and all the goods which 
can be envied: royal birth, perfect beauty, a fine 
and delicate mind, a sensitive soul and that 
sweetness, that equality of character which are so 
precious and so rare, especially in persons of her 
rank. Simple, natural, chary of words, she always 
expressed herself delightfully and wisely; there was 
as much reason as charm in her conversation. 
The sound of her voice penetrated to the bottom 
of the heart, and an air of sentiment, spread over 
her whole person, gave interest to her least impor- 
tant actions; such was Mile, de Clermont at the 
age of twenty." She appears at Chantilly and, 
immediately, the beauty of the place, which 
offers '^all that a sensitive soul can love in the 



272 The Spell of the Heart of France 

way of rural and solitary delights," the splendor 
of "the most ingenious and the most sumptuous 
feasts," the pleasure of her first homage and her 
first praise, intoxicate her youthful heart. 

Portrait of M. de Melun: "His character, his 
virtues, entitle him to personal consideration, 
independently of his fortune and of his birth. 
Although his figure was noble and his features 
mild and intellectual, his outer man showed no 
briUiancy; he was cold and distracted in society; 
though gifted with a superior mind, he was not 
at all what is called an amiable man, because he 
felt no desire to please, not from disdain or pride, 
but from an indifference which he had constantly 
preserved up to this period. . . . Finally the 
Due de Melun, though endowed with the most 
noble politeness, had no gallantry; his very sensi- 
tiveness and extreme delicacy had preserved him 
till then from any engagement formed iu caprice; 
aged scarcely thirty years, he was still only too 
capable of experiencing a grand passion, but, 
because of his character and his morals, he was 
safe from all the seductions of coquetry." 

One of the favorite diversions of Mile, de Cler- 
mont was to read romances aloud before a few 
friends, and on these occasions, they never failed 
to praise her reading and her sensitiveness. 
"The women wept, the men listened with the 



Chantilly 273 

appearance of admiration and sentiment; they 
talked quite low among themselves; it was easy 
to guess what they said; sometimes they were 
overheard (vanity has so fine an ear!), and the 
hearer gathered the words ravishing, enchanting. '' 

We will soon see if this story is true. But let 
us emphasize in passing the improbabihty of this 
little picture. Is it credible that people wept so 
abundantly at Chantilly in 1724? 

A single man, always present at these lectures, 
preserves an obstinate silence: it is M. de Melun. 
The attitude of this motionless and silent auditor 
pricks the curiosity of Mile, de Clermont. She 
questions. The Duke lets her understand that the 
reading of romances seems futile and frivolous to 
him. On the morrow she inflicts on her auditors 
the reading of a book of history. And the intrigue 
is begun. 

Mile, de Clermont seeks the company of the Mar- 
quise de G. . . , a tiresome and loquacious person, 
but the cousin of M. de Melun: her presence takes 
the curse off the promenades and conversations 
in the gardens of Chantilly. Dm-ing one of these 
promenades, a petition is presented to the princess. 
She promises to hand it to her brother. But, in 
the hurry of dressing for the ball, she forgets her 
promise. M. de Melun, without saying anything 
about it, picks up the petition which was forgotten 



274 The Spell of the Heart of Prance 

upon a table, and obtains from M. le Due the 
favor which was asked, pretending that he is 
fuMUing the wishes of Mile, de Clermont. Con- 
fusion of the forgetful young girl, who makes a 
vow not to appear at a ball for a year. ... I 
will not say that this sentimental catastrophe is 
the most happy episode of the novel of Madame 
de Genlis. 

More delicate, more truthful, more touching — 
with an agreeable dash of romance — is the story 
of the incidents which lead up to the inevitable 
declaration. Mile, de Clermont is the first to 
avow her passion. Her birth and rank forbid 
M. de Melun to seek the hand of a princess of the 
blood royal. He goes away, he returns. Oaths 
are exchanged, and it is finally Mile, de Clermont 
who proposes a secret marriage. 

The two lovers appoint a meeting in a cottage. 
M. de Melun throws himself at the feet of Mile, 
de Clermont and abandons himself to all the 
transports of passion. Suddenly he rises and in a 
stifled voice begs her for the last time to abandon 
him. 

"No, no," returns Mile, de Clermont, "I will 
not flee from him whom I can love without shame, 
without reserve and without remorse, if he dares, 
as well as myself, to brave the most odious prej- 
udices." At these words the Duke regarded 



Chantilly 275 

Mile, de Clermont with surprise and shock. 
"I am twenty-two years old/' she continued; 
''the authors of my being no longer exist; the age 
and the rank of my brother give him only a 
fictitious authority over me, for nature has made 
me his equal." 

"Great God!" cried the Duke, "what are you 
trying to make me think?" 

"What! would I then be doing such an extraor- 
dinary thing? Did not Mile, de Montpensier 
marry the Due de Lauzun?" 

"What do you say? Oh, heavens!" 

"Did not the proudest of our kings at first 
approve this union? Later a court intrigue made 
him revoke his permission; but he had given it. 
Your birth is not inferior to that of the Due de 
Lauzun. Mile, de Montpensier was blamed by 
nobody, and she would not have failed to appear 
interesting in all eyes, because she was young and 
especially because she was loved." 

"Who? Me? By such an excess I would abuse 
your sentiments and yom* inexperience!" 

"There is no longer time for us to flee. . . . 
There is no longer time for us to deceive ourselves 
by discussing impossible sacrifices. ... As we 
cannot break the tie which binds us, we must 
render it legitimate and sanctify it." 

The next night, at two o'clock in the morning. 



276 The Spell of the Heart of France 

clothed in a simple white muslin dress, she leaves 
the chateau. As she crosses the courtyard, her 
skirt catches on one of the ornaments of the 
pedestal of Conde's statue. She turns around in 
terror and believes that she must relate to her 
great ancestor the reasons for her attire. This 
nocturnal discourse is not one of the most 
ingenious inventions of Madame de Genlis. 

In the same hut where the supreme explanation 
had occurred a chaplain secretly unites the new 
Lauzun to the new Montpensier. 

Eight days later the King arrives at Chantilly. 
Festivals and hunts. M. de Melun is thrown off 
his horse and wounded by a stag: we have seen 
the true story of the accident. 

Mile, de Clermont is a few steps from the place 

where her husband is wounded ; her carriage serves 

to transport the wounded man to the chateau. 

Passion is stronger than convention: she confesses 

all to M. le Due. He, to avoid a scandal, feigns a 

trifle of indulgence and persuades the unfortunate 

lady to conceal her grief until the King's departure. 

She is buoyed up by false news, is told that the 

wound is not mortal and is not informed of the 

death of M. de Melun until Louis XV has left 

Chantilly. \ 

* * * * * * * 

History or romance? 




From the pastelle by Rosalba Carriera 

LOUIS XV AS DAUPHIN 



Chantilly 277 

Let us first remark that, whether history or 
romance, there is nothing to locaUze this story 
at the House of Sylvie. Madame de Genlis simply 
says to us that she thought it out in Sylvie's 
wood, that is all. In the great gallery of the 
Musee Conde, a painting by Nattier shows us 
the delicate countenance and the ardent eyes of 
Mile, de Clermont. The princess is there repre- 
sented in the guise of a nymph; her elbow rests 
on an overturned urn whence flows a limpid 
stream; a Love smiles at her feet; near her a 
servant holds a ewer bound with gold and from 
it fills a cup. In the background a pretty garden 
pavihon is outlined against a winter sky. This 
pavilion is that of the "Mineral Springs," and 
thus explains the allegories of the portrait. This 
little structure disappeared more than a century 
ago : it was situated in a part of the gardens which 
formerly extended over the hill of La Nonette, 
between the little stream and the main street of 
Chantilly : this land was separated from the domain 
during the Revolution and is now occupied by 
private owners. Possibly, at some time, some one 
has taken the pavilion in Nattier's picture for the 
House of Sylvie and perhaps this confusion explains 
why the souvenir of Mile, de Clermont and 
M. de Melun has been placed beside the souvenir 
of Th6ophile and the Duchess of Montmorency. 



278 The Spell of the Heart of France 

But do we find here only an error of topography? 
Did Mile, de Clermont secretly marry the Due de 
Melun? 

What might make us doubt the truth of the 
anecdote is primarily the character of the author 
who related it to us. Madame de Genhs made a 
travesty of everything: the past, the present and 
even the future. She put romanticism and romance 
into her own existence as well as that of others; 
whether it is a question of events of which she 
was witness or of those which she relates from 
hearsay, it is never prudent to accept her word 
without confirmation. 

Let us apply the test. Neither in the memoirs 
nor in the letters of the first half of the eighteenth 
century have I discovered an allusion to the 
intrigue of one of the sisters of M. le Due with the 
gentleman whom a stag mortally wounded in the 
forest of Chantilly on August 30, 1724. I have 
questioned the man who today best knows the 
history of Chantilly, M. Gustav Macon: he told 
me that he has never met a mention of the adven- 
ture of Mile, de Clermont before 1802, the date 
at which Madame de Genlis published her novel. 

We do not know much about the pretty naiad 
painted by Nattier. We know the charm of her 
features and we know that Montesquieu wrote 
for her the Temple de Guide, "with no other aim 



ti^' ^^ 




PORTRAIT OF MADEMOISELLE DE CLERMONT, BY NATTIER 



Chantilly 279 

than to make a poetic picture of voluptuousness." 
But an anecdote told by Duclos will show us 
a person somewhat different from the heroine 
of Madame de Genhs. When the marriage of 
Louis XV with Marie Leczinska was decided 
upon, the Due d'Antin was sent to Strasbourg as 
an envoy to the PoUsh princess. He pronounced 
in these circumstances a discourse in which, with 
singular lack of tact, he found it necessary to 
make an allusion to the project which M. le 
Due had recently conceived of marrying the 
King to the youngest of his sisters, Mile, de Sens: 
the King, he said, having to choose between the 
Graces and Virtues, had taken the latter. Mile, 
de Clermont, superintendent of the future house- 
hold of the Queen, heard this remark: "Appar- 
ently," she said, "d'Antin takes us, my sisters and 
myself, for prostitutes." This is not the tone 
of the romance of Madame de GenUs. 

Madame de Tracy relates that one day she 
read Mademoiselle de Clermont and wept for a 
solid hour. Madame de Coigny then said to her: 
"But all that is not true." Madame de Tracy 
answered: "What has that to do with it, if it seems 
truef And Madame de Tracy was right. . . . 
Today it seems a little less true, and I do not 
promise my female readers, if they take the fancy 
of reading Mademoiselle de Clermont, that they 



280 The Spell of the Heart of Prance 



will weep for an hour. It is even possible that in 
certain places they might have more desire to 
laugh than to weep. Nevertheless, it is a pleasant 
bit to read under the trees of Chantilly, this tiny 
romance printed by Didot, and which Desenne 
illustrated with fine and childish Httle designs, 
where we see gentlemen in wigs and ladies in 
curls in surroundings of Empire style; a lovable 
and opportune anachronism, for it has marvel- 
ously translated the character of this sentimental 
novel, which never had any history back of it. 



XV 

THE CHATEAU OF WIDEVILLE. 

IN a little valley, between Versailles and Maule, 
at the end of an immense green carpet where 
a few old garden statues still stand, the chateau 
of Wideville deploys its beautiful fagade of red 
brick framed in white stone. The harmonious 
lines of the uneven roofs show up against the 
backgroimd of the wooded hillside. Around the 
building, wide moats filled with running water 
form a square, and at each angle of the platform 
projects a square bastion topped by a watch tower. 
This parade-armor harmonizes well with the 
robust elegance of the construction. On beholding 
the admirable mixture here produced by the 
reminiscences of the feudal manor, the graces of 
the Renaissance and the majesty of classic archi- 
tecture, we immediately think of that magical 
line of Victor Hugo: 

It was a grand chateau of the day of Louis Treize. 

To tell the truth, we know no other architectural 
work in France which expresses with more deli- 
cacy and seduction the noble and chivalrous 

sesi 



^82 The Spell of the Heart of France 

charm of the period when order and discipline had 
not effaced all traces of fancy. And as, by rare 
good fortune, Wideville still belongs to descend- 
ants of him who built it, and as its possessors 
have preserved it and repaired it with jealous 
care and perfect taste, it is a hving image of 
French art of the time of Louis XIII which we 
have before our eyes. 

At the commencement of the seventeenth 
century, the manor of Wideville was a square 
fortress, flanked with towers and rising upon a 
mound; it was doubtless restored at the time of 
the Renaissance, for magnificent mantels of this 
period were moved into the new chateau which 
Claude de Bulhon built in 1632 at the bottom of the 
valley, after he had bought the estate of Wideville 
from Rene de Longueil, Marquis de Maisons. 

This little Claude de Bullion was a very great 
personage, though the tininess of his stature pro- 
voked all kinds of jeers. He was the son of a 
Burgundian magistrate, and his mother was one 
of the twenty children of Charles de Lamoignon. 
Tallemant des Reaux has related that a certain 
Countess de Sault had contributed to the advance- 
ment of the little Claude, and had succeeded in 
getting him nominated as President of the 
Inquests. ''Ah! Madame!" she said one day to 
Marie de M6dicis, "if you only knew Monsieur 



'The Chateau of Wideville 283 

de Bullion as well as I do!" "Gawd preserve 
me from it, Madame la Comtesse!" replied the 
Italian. Henri IV had charged him with various 
embassies. Louis XIII made him guardian of the 
seals of his orders, and then superintendent of 
the finances. Whatever may have been the origin 
of the good luck of BuUion, he showed himself 
worthy of his position by his talent and probity. 
When he became superintendent of the finances, 
he had the prudence to make an inventory of his 
property, in order to be able to defend himself 
against any future accusation of peculation. It 
became necessary for him to provide for the finan- 
cial demands of Richelieu, which were terrible. 
So he laid new taxes and became very unpopular, 
but it did not displease him to oppose the multi- 
tude. In 1636, when the Spanish army had 
invaded the kingdom, Richelieu did not dare to 
face the discontent of the people, exasperated by 
defeat. '^ And I," said Bullion to him, "whom they 
hate more than your Eminence, I will go through 
the whole city on horseback, followed by two 
lackeys only, and no one will say a word to me." 
He did it as he had promised, and the next day 
the Cardinal, emboldened, repaired in a carriage 
with doors open from his palace to the Porte 
Saint Antoine. 
The King and his minister backed up BuUion. 



284 The Spell of the Heart of France 

He groaned incessantly about the state of the 
finances and forecast bankruptcy. His complaints 
did not trouble Richelieu: ''As to the humors of 
M. de Bullion," wrote the Cardinal, ''we must 
overlook them without worrying about them, 
when they are bad." 

He was extremely rich, for he was a good man- 
ager and received each year from the King a 
present of one hundred thousand livres in addition 
to his salary. His manner of life never exceeded 
his income. Later, in the time of the great prodi- 
gality of the superintendent Nicolas Fouquet, 
people recalled the economy of M. de Bullion 
and the modest appearance of his hotel in the 
Rue Platriere. As for his morals, they were 
scandalous, also on the authority of TaUemant. 
The superintendent often repaired to the Faubourg 
Saint Victor, to the home of his friend Doctor de 
Brosse, who had there founded a botanical garden, 
and there he indulged in gross debauchery at his 
ease. But we possess a very curious letter from 
Richelieu to Madame de Bullion, where we read: 
"I would like to be able to witness more usefully 
than I have the affection with which I shall 
always be at your service. Aside from the fact 
that the consideration of your merit would cause 
this, the frequent solicitations which M. de Bullion 
makes to me in regard to what can concern your 



The Chateau of Wideville 285 

contentment, renders me not a little agreeable 
to this. I have seen the day when I beUeved that 
he was one of those husbands who love their 
wives only because of the money they have 
brought; but now I perceive that he loves his 
skin better than his shirt, the interest of his 
wife more than those of another, and that he is, 
as concerns marriage, like those who do not think 
that they have done a good work unless they do 
it in secret. ..." Harmonize the testimony of 
Tallemant with that of Richelieu. 

The story of Bullion's death is rather tragic. 
On December 21, 1640, in the new chateau of 
Saint Germain, as the King, who was already very 
ill, seemed to sleep before the fire, stretched out 
in his great Roman chaii", some courtiers who were 
talking in a window embrasure asked one another 
in a low voice who would succeed Cardinal de 
Richelieu, whose life was known to be in danger. 
The King heard their words and turned around: 
"Gentlemen," he said, "you forget M. de Bullion." 
On the next day the words of Louis XIII were 
reported to the minister, who became furious at 
the thought that his place was being thus disposed 
of. He harshly criticized Bullion, who had come 
to see him as ordinarily, for having forgotten a 
detail of administration, and wished to make him 
sign an acknowledgment of i':. As the superin- 



286 The Spell of the Heart of France 

tendent refused, he seized the tongs from the 

fireplace 'Ho give them to him on the head." 

BuUion signed, but was stricken with apoplexy as 

the result. He was bled twice in the arm. The 

Cardinal came to see him, and found him without 

speech or knowledge. '' Having seen which," — 

it is Guy Patiu who relates it, — ''dissolved in 

tears, the Cardinal Prince returned. The sick 

man died from congestion of the brain." 

Such was the man who built the Chateau de 

Wideville. The neighborhood of Saint Germain, 

and the nearness of the forests where the King 

usually hunted, doubtless decided him to choose 

for his residence this melancholy and solitary 

valley surrounded by woods. 

******* 

We do not know what architect drew the plan 
and superintended the construction of Wideville. 
We do not know to whom to attribute this build- 
ing, so well seated upon the fortified platform, 
these fagades so pleasingly designed, cut by a 
central projection and flanked by two paviHons, 
these roofs where dormers of charming style 
alternate with projecting bull's-eyes, these rounded 
platforms which unite the mansion to the court 
of honor and to the gardens, and that delightful 
coloring which is given to the whole construction 
by the happy union of stone and brick. 




from a sketch by Guillaumot (187S) 

CHATEAU OF WIDEVILLE 



The Chateau of Wideville 287 

Two great artists collaborated in the decoration 
of Wideville, the sculptor Sarazin and the painter 
Vouet, for whom Bullion seems to have felt 
especial esteem, for he commissioned the pair of 
them with the ornamentation of his Parisian hotel 
also. Sarazin executed the four statues in niches 
which beautify the fagade towards the gardens; 
he also carved the two hounds which guard the 
door of the house on the same side. 

Behind the chateau are gardens in the French 
style. The flower-beds have been restored in the 
antique taste. In Bulhon's time a wide avenue 
started from the platform, bordered with mytho- 
logical statues, works of Buyster, but nothing 
remains of it today. The grotto, situated at the 
end of this alley, still exists, and this grotto is the 
marvel of Wideville. Of all the edifices of this 
species with which fashion ornamented so many 
French gardens in imitation of Italy, this is, I 
believe, the best preserved. It is a pavihon whose 
fagade presents four columns of the Tuscan order, 
cut by rustic drums and charged with carved 
mosses. The three bays between these columns 
are closed by hammered iron gratings, masterpieces 
of the locksmith's art. Male and female figures, 
representing rivers, lying on a bed of roses, enframe 
the arched pediment which surmounts the grotto. 
The interior is lined with shells. The nymphseum 



288 The Spell of the Heart of France 

has lost its statues, but we still see the vase from 
which water flowed through three hons' heads. 
Stucco figures of satyrs frame the great cartouches 
of the ceiling, where Vouet executed admirable 
mythological paintings. These are now very much 
damaged, but what time has spared of them shows 
a marvelous decorator, a worthy disciple of the 
great Venetians. 

Near the chateau, a pleasant little house which 
is called the '^Hermitage," and which was slightly 
modified in the eighteenth century, contains some 
delicate wood carvings. Farther away stands the 
chapel, a simple oratory with an arched ceiling. 
There, before the altar, a stone sarcophagus bears 
the words Respect and Obedience; this is the 
sepulcher of the Duchesse de La Valli^re, niece 
of the Carmelite Louis de la Mis6ricorde. Of 
all the phantoms which people Wideville, there 
is none more charming than that of JuHe de 
Crussol, Duchesse de La Valli^re. The whole 
eighteenth century celebrated her grace, her 
charity, her sharp and brilliant wit, her beauty 
which defied years. Voltaire versified for her his 
finest compliments. During the whole Revolution 
she remained in her chateau, and her presence 
preserved Wideville from the fate which then 
overtook so many old seigniorial domains. The 
thought of being buried under the earth had 



The Chateau of Widev ille 289 

always horrified her; so her remains were placed 
in this sarcophagus standing above ground. 

Like the exterior and the gardens, the apart- 
ments of the chateau have preserved their aspect 
of earlier years. Some changes which dated from 
the eighteenth century have been removed in 
order that the house might be as it was in the 
time of Claude de Bullion. 

Three Renaissance chimney pieces adorn the 
great rooms of Wideville. They are constructed 
of white stone and of different colored marbles, 
ornamented with marvelous carvings, which repre- 
sent foliage, sirens and female heads, and they 
were found in the earUer manor which Bulhon 
demolished. Perhaps it was by the advice of 
Sarazin that he had them moved to the new 
home. 

Except the guardroom, whose ceiling is a 
masterpiece of architectural ingenuity, all the 
rooms of the chateau have ceiUngs with painted 
beams. The enameled brick pavements are intact. 
Everywhere are tapestries, one of which with 
dehciously faded tones represents the siege of La 
Rochelle, precious paintings, family portraits. 
In the "King's Chamber" almost nothing has 
been changed since January 23, 1634; it was on 
this day that Louis XIII paid M. de BuUion the 



290 The Spell of the Heart of France 

compliment of sleeping at Wideville. And every- 
where there occurs to our memory the line of 
Victor Hugo : 

It was a grand chateau of the time of Louis Treize. 




XVI 

THE ABBEY OF LIVRY 

jHE ancient abbey of Livry, situated between 
the village of Livry-en-1 ' Aulnoye and that 
of Chchy-sous-Bois, three leagues from 
Paris, is about to be sold by pubhc auction. 
This property belonged to the Congregation of 
the Fathers of the Assumption, who had their 
houses of novices here. As in a short time it will 
probably be turned over to speculators, who will 
cut it into lots for suburban houses, it is necessary 
before its destruction to evoke some of the sou- 
venirs which have rendered this place illustrious. 
Other than precious and charming memories, 
there is nothing which can interest us at Livry; 
and these relate only to literary history. The 
rehgious chronicles of the abbey of Notre Dame 
de Livry, founded at the end of the twelfth century 
as a monastery of canons regular, offers no episode 
worthy of attention. There is nothing here for 
the archaeologist save a pile of old stones, rem- 
nants of capitals and of funeral slabs, which 
were discovered a few years ago. Of the architec- 

291 



292 The Spell of the Heart of France 

ture of the ancient monastery, there remains only 
a dwelUng house of the seventeenth century. 
The rest of the buildings were destroyed after 
the Revolution and have since been replaced by 
characterless structures. Finally, though the 
park presents almost its former beautiful design, 
its trees were replanted in the nineteenth century. 
But Livry was the "pretty abbey" dear to 
Madame de S^vigne. It is here that she wrote 
her most charming pages, passed her sweetest 
hours, felt the most vividly the seduction of the 
country. So Livry is sacred soil for every lover 
of French letters. 

H: 4: lie 9!( $ 4t 4: 

In 1624 the King gave the abbey of Livry to 
Christophe de Coulanges as commendator. He was 
then only eighteen years old. - 

In both a spiritual and a worldly sense the abbey 
was in a pitiable condition: its church was crum- 
bling, its houses were scarcely inhabitable, and 
great disorder reigned among the few ecclesiastics 
who remained in the cloister. The young abbot 
was pious and economical. The abbey was 
reformed with his consent, the church restored, 
and a part of the cloister rebuilt. He put up this 
grand building of noble and simple aspect, which 
still stands; he made of it an agreeable country 
house, surrounded by orange trees, flower beds, 



The Abbey of Livry 293 

bits of water, and easily accessible, for a fine 
avenue joined it to the highway from Paris to 
Meaux. He furnished apartments there, received 
his family and his friends, and led a hfe without 
display, but without privations. Besides, if the 
rule was then strictly observed in the monastery, 
the monks were not very numerous: in 1662, there 
were only eight professed friars there. (Note 30.) 
In 1636, the Abb^ de Coulanges was invested 
with the guardianship of a little orphan, his 
niece, Marie de Chantal: the child was ten years 
old; the tutor twenty-nine. For fifty years he 
watched over the person and the property of his 
ward with an entirely paternal solicitude, gave 
her very wise masters, Uke Manage and Chapelain, 
occupied himself with her establishment and, 
when she became a widow, wisely administered 
her fortune. But everything was said by Madame 
de Sevign^ herself, when the "very good" died: 
"There is nothing good that he did not do for 
me, either in giving me his own property entirely, 
or in preserving and reestablishing that of my 
children. He drew me from the abyss in which 
I was at the death of M. de Sevign6, he won law- 
suits, he restored all my properties to good condi- 
tion, he paid our debts, he made the estate which 
my son inhabits the most handsome and agreeable 
in the world, he married off my children; in a word 



294 The Spell of the Heart of France 

I owe peace and repose in life to his continuous 
cares. . . ." And she adds this reflection so 
tenderly true and so sadly human: "The loss that 
we feel when the old die is often considerable 
when we have great reasons for loving them and 
when we have always seen them." (September 
2, 1687.) 

Madame de Sevign6 had passed her youth at 
Livry near this worthy man. After the death of 
her husband she stayed there from choice. She 
lived happily there with her daughter, and the 
latter even returned there several times after 
her marriage. These memories rendered Livry 
still more dear to Madame de S6vign6, who, on an 
April day, after having heard the nightingales 
and contemplated the budding greenery of the 
park, wrote to Madame de Grignan: *'It is very 
difficult for me to revisit this place, this garden, 
these alleys, this little bridge, this avenue, this 
meadow, this mill, this little view, this forest, 
without thinking of my very dear child." (April 
22, 1672.) In the summer, when they put her 
httle daughter in her care, she took her to Livry: 
'^Presently I am going to Livry; I will take with 
me my httle child and her nurse and all the httle 
household. . . . (May 27, 1672.) She loved to 
receive her son at Livry. She went to Livry to 
care for her maladies and to follow her treatments. 



The Abbey of Livry 295 

She also went there to pay her devotions in Holy- 
Week: "I have made of this house a little 
Trappe. ... I have found pleasure in the sadness 
which I have had here: a great solitude, a great 
silence, a sad office, Tenebrse intoned with devotion 
(I had never been at Livry in Holy Week), a 
canonical fast and a beauty in these gardens with 
which you would be charmed, all these have 
pleased me." (March 24, 1671.) It was her 
favorite place for writing, and she said that her 
mind and her body were there in peace. And, 
truly, almost all the letters which she wrote from 
Livry breathed joy and health. 

So what despair, when, at the death of the 
Abb6 de Coulanges, she beheves that she will 
no longer be able to return to Livry and that she 
must say farewell to that agreeable solitude 
which she loves so much! "After having wept 
for the Abbe," she cries, ''I weep for the abbey." 
(November 13, 1687.) Happily the successor 
of the Abb^ de Coulanges is Seguier de la Verriere, 
former bishop of Nimes. He is a very holy prelate, 
and allows Madame de Sevign6 hberty to go to 
Livry, as in the days of the ''very good^ But 
Seguier dies. New anxieties. Fmally the abbey 
is given to Denis Sanguin, bishop of Senhs, an 
uncle of Louis Sanguin, Lord of Livry, friend of 
the Coulanges and of Madam_e de S^vign^. Then 



^96 The Spell of the Heart of France 

she writes to her daughter: '^It is true that these 
Sanguins, this Villeneuve, the idea of the old 
Pavin, these old acquaintances, are so confused 
with our garden and our forest, that it seems to 
me it is the same thing, and that not only have 
we lent it to them, but that it is still ours by the 
assurance of again finding there our old furniture 
and the same people whom we saw there so often. 
Finally, my child, we were worthy of this pretty 
solitude by the taste which we had and which 
we still have for it." 

^ >{: * * >!: 4: 4: 

Since we have opened the letters of Madame 
de Sevign^, let us continue to mark the pages in 
which she has spoken of Livry, and let us seek 
the reason for the taste for this ''pretty solitude" 
which she showed to the end. 

She knew how to enjoy the days of sadness in 
this "solitude," for example when she had just 
been separated from her daughter, or when she 
had received some unpleasant news from Grignan. 
On these days she tasted the silence of the forest 
and of the meadow: ''Here is a true place for the 
humor in which I am: there are hours and alleys 
whose holy horror is interrupted only by the love 
affairs of our stags, and I enjoy this solitude." 
(October 4, 1679.) And, a few days later: "I 
wish to boast of being all afternoon in this meadow 



The Abbey of Livry 297 

talking to our cows and our sheep. I have good 
books and especially the little letters and Montaigne. 
What more is needed when I have not you?" 
(October 25, 1679.) But she was not the woman 
to content herself with the holy horror of the 
woods and to converse forever with the beasts 
of her meadow. She had a httle of the turn of 
imagination of the good La Fontaine. But, 
affectionate and sociable, she also wished friends 
about her and loved conversation. At Livry she 
very often met her uncle, her cousins, the de 
Coulanges, her friend Corbinelh, the Abbe de 
Grignan and many others. She was neighborly 
with the famihes and guests of de Pomponne, de 
Clichy and de Chelles. Chariots brought from 
Paris loquacious visitors, rich in news. Walks on 
foot in the near-by forest were improvised. 

Nowhere — not even at Les Rochers, where 
she drew so many pleasant landscapes — did 
Madame de Sevigne better express the pleasure 
given her by the spectacles of nature. She has 
expressed with inimitable art the particular charm 
of each season in a few words, and we might, by 
collecting certain passages of the letters written 
at Livry, compose, as it were, the picturesque 
calendar of Madame de Sevigne. Let us try it. 

February: ''We have passed here the three days 
of carnival, the sun which shone Saturday made 



298 The Spell of the Heart of France 

us decide on it. . . . We have tempered the 
brilUancy of approaching Lent with the dead 
leaves of this forest ; we have had the most beauti- 
ful weather in the world, the gardens are clean, 
the view beautiful, and a noise of birds which 
already commences to announce spring has seemed 
to us much more pleasant than the horrid cries 
of Paris. . . ." (February 2, 1680.) 

April: "I departed quite early from Paris: I 
went to dine at Pomponne; there I found our 
honhomme (Arnaud d'AndiUy). . . . Finally, 
after six hours of very agreeable, though very 
serious conversation, I left him and came here, 
where I found all the triumph of the month of May. 
The nightingale, the cuckoo, the warbler 

Have opened the spring in our forests. 

I walked there all evening quite alone." (April 
29, 1671.) 

May: "The beauty of Livry is above everything 
that you have seen; the trees are more beautiful 
and more green; everything is full of those lovely 
honeysuckles. This odor has not yet sickened 
me; though you greatly scorn our little bushes, 
compared with your groves of oranges." (May 30, 
1672.) 

July: "Ah, my very dear one, how I would wish 
for you such nights as we have here! What sweet 
and gracious air! What coolness! What tranquillity! 



The Abbey of Livry 299 

What silence! I would like to be able to send it 
to you and let your north wiud be confounded by 
it." (July 3, 1677.) 

August: "You well remember that beautiful 
evenings and full moonlight gave me a sovereign 
pleasure. " (August 14, 1676.) 

November: ''I have come here to finish the 
fine weather and bid adieu to the leaves; they 
are all still on the trees; they have only changed 
color; instead of being green, they are the color of 
dawn and of so many kinds of dawn that they 
compose a rich and magnificent cloth of gold which 
we wish to find more beautiful than green, even if it 
were only as a change.'^ (November 3, 1677.) — 
*'I leave this place with regret, my daughter: 
the country is still beautiful; this avenue and all 
that was stripped by the caterpillars and which 
has taken the Uberty of growing out again with 
your permission, is greener than in the spring of 
the most beautiful years; the little and the great 
palisades are adorned with those beautiful shades 
of autumn by which the painters know so well how 
to profit; the great elms are somewhat stripped, 
but we do not regret these punctured leaves; 
the country as a whole is still all smiling. . . ." 

These samples, chosen from a hundred others, 
show how dehcate was the sentiment of nature 
in Madame de Sevigne. We find in her letters 



BOO The Spell of the Heart of France 

all the themes with which modem poets since 
Lamartine have experimented: the first songs of 
birds announcing the spring, the "triumph of 
May," the serenity of summer nights, the beauty 
of moonlight, the charm of Indian summer, the 
sumptuous sadness of autumn. We may say that 
these are the commonplaces of universal poetry. 
But as it was long since conceded that, except for 
La Fontaine, no one iq the seventeenth century was 
sensible of the charm of landscapes, it is well to 
note these impressions of Madame de Sevign6. 
I know the reply: Madame de S6vign6 is herself a 
second exception. Is this quite certain? Observe 
that Madame de S^vigne does not witness in the 
least that she considers it original to take a 
Virgilian pleasure in the song of the nightingale 
or even in the full moon. Her correspondents 
whose letters we possess, do not show any more 
surprise at these effusions. There is no doubt that 
they themselves are moved by the same emotion 
before the same pictures. They do not say so. 
Therefore, the rule is to communicate one's 
intimate thoughts and sentiments only with all 
sorts of reserves and precautions; one's "impres- 
sions" are not written down. La Fontaine scorns 
this rule, hke all others. Madame de Sevign6 does 
not submit to it any more than he does, because 
she writes only for a little group of friends, and 



The Abbey of Livry 301 

because she abandons herself to her expansive 
nature in everything. But, even if not the object 
of literature, the love of the country was neither 
less Hvely nor less widespread in the seventeenth 
century than at any other period. 

Madame de S6vign6, then, is pleased at Livry 
because she is sensitive to the varied shadings of 
landscapes and to the changes of nature. But 
she has a singular preference for this bit of soil, 
so much so that she does not seem to feel the 
dampness there — which is unusual for a 
rheumatic — and that one day she will regret 
all of it, even to the rain: ''How charming these 
rainy days are! We will never forget this little 
place." Perhaps the landscape of Livry, this 
modest and gracious landscape of the Parisis 
which she describes so charmingly — "this garden, 
these alleys, this little bridge, this avenue, this 
meadow, this mill, this little view, this forest" — 
is what accords best with her imagination. Exalted 
in her maternal tenderness, passionate in her 
friendships, Madame de S6vign6 offers the con- 
trast of ardent sensitiveness and controlled taste. 
Her judicious spirit shudders at excess and 
disorder. The humble and fine elegance of this 
countryside in the surroundings of Paris must 
have enchanted her. She loves her estate of Les 
Rochers greatly, but more as a proprietor proud 



302 The Spell of the Heart of France 

of the improvements with which she has enriched 
her domain. For Livry she has a tenderness of 
the heart. 

The comparison between Livry and Grignan 
recurs incessantly in her letters, as we have seen. 
Without doubt she is thinking principally of the 
health of her daughter when she curses the north 
wind of Provence and "this sharp and frosty air 
which pierces the most robust." But, at the same 
time, how clearly we see that to the harsh and 
rocky sites of the Midi she prefers northern nature, 
more gentle, more smihng, and to ''this devil of 
a Rhone, so proud, so haughty, so turbulent," the 
''beautiful Seine" whose gracious banks are 
"ornamented with houses, trees, little willows, Uttle 
canals, which we cause to issue from this great 
river!" On another occasion she writes: "How 
excessive you are in Provence! All is extreme, your 
torridities, your calms, your north winds, your 
rains out of season, your thunders in autumn: 
there is nothing gentle nor temperate. Your 
rivers are out of their banks, your fields drowned 
and furrowed. Your Durance has almost always 
the devil in its bosom; your Isle of Brouteron very 
often submerged." (November 1, 1679.) 

In the last years of her hfe, she ended by 
pardoning Provence for its north wind and its 
sharp air; one winter, she will even decide that 



The Abbey of Livry 303 

the mountains covered with snow are charming, 
and she will wish that a painter might reproduce 
these frightful beauties. And it will be not only 
the joy of living near her daughter which will 
cause her thus to abjure her tastes of aforetime, 
but also the softness of the sun and of the light. 
There are no old people who can resist this sorcery. 
In the last letters written to Grignan there is no 
longer a mention of Livry. 

We would like to, find today in the house and the 
garden of the old abbey some trace of the sojourn 
of Madame de Sevign6; but everything has been 
upset since the end of the eighteenth century. 

Here is the dwelling house constructed by the 
Abb6 de Coulanges, in which Madame de S6vign4 
dwelt. Where was the apartment of the Marquise? 
In a letter of August 12, 1676, she says: ''We have 
made a casement opening on the garden in the 
little cabinet, which takes away all the damp and 
unhealthy air which was there, and which gives 
us extreme pleasure; it does not make the room 
warm, for only the rising sun visits it for an hour 
or two. ..." The indication is precise. We are 
oriented, and we recognize very nearly the position 
of the little cabinet. But was this on the first or 
second floor? It is impossible to discover any 
indication. And we walk about soberly in the 



304 The Spell of the Heart of France 

apartments, deserted since the departure of the 
Assumptionists : some abandoned books, collec- 
tions of sermons, rest on a sheK of the hbrary; 
old priests' hats lie on the floor; a beret hes on a 
corner of a table, a great map of Paris in the 
eighteenth century hangs askew upon a waU; 
the breeze blows through the windows whose 
panes are broken. . . . 

The gardens have long since given place to 
meadows and thickets. An old orange house with 
broken glass is hah in ruins. The basins have 
disappeared. Here is, however, the canal where 
M. du Plessis, tutor of the children of M. de 
Pomponne, tried to down himself. The little 
bridge, near which Madame de Sevign6 went to 
wait for her visitors or her mail, no longer exists, 
but the abutments mark its position, and, there 
also, an iron gate which assuredly dates from the 
time of the Abb4 de Coulanges still hangs between 
two stone pillars. And this poor remnant of the 
ancient architecture is sufficient to render more 
hvely the little picture which Madame de S^vigne 
has drawn in one of her letters : "1 pace about the 
little bridge; I emerge from the 'Humor of my 
Daughter^ and look through the 'Humor of my 
Mother^ to see if La Beauce (one of her lackeys) 
does not come ; and then I walk up again and return 
to put my nose into the end of the path which 



The Abbey of Livry 305 

leads to the Uttle bridge; and by dint of taking 

this walk, I see this dear letter come, and I receive 

it and read it with all the sentiments which you 

may imagine." (August 4, 1677.) And naturally, 

nothing exists of the two alleys which had been 

given those singular names, "under which" — 

the remark is by Father Mesnard, the best of the 

biographers of Madame de Sevign6 — ''one cannot 

fail to imagine the so different tastes of the mother 

and of the daughter, their so opposite characters, 

their occasional poutings, and their promenades 

separated after some quarrel, and which make us 

always think, the one of a beautiful smihng alley, 

full of light and verdure, the other of some path 

more cramped, more sad and more dry." In 

the park, if we no longer promenade under the 

very trees that sheltered the reveries of Madame 

de Sevign^, the alleys at least have remained 

rectilinear and still present the perspectives which 

were ingeniously arranged by the gardener of the 

Abb^ de Coulanges. Finally, the ''little view" 

which charmed Madame de Sevigne has not 

X3hanged. There is always, beyond the meadows 

and the park, the same horizon harmoniously 

bounded by a swell of land covered with woods — 

a gracious site, ennobled by so many beautiful 

memories that, if we were not entirely barbarous, 

we would have to save it from the woodcutters 



306 The Spell of the Heart of France 

and the builders . Ah! if there could only be found 
some friend of Madame de Sevigne to prevent 
them from touching the ''pretty solitude!" 



THE END 



NOTES 

Note 1. Page 28. Bossuet by Rebelliau, in the series 
"Grands ficrivains frangais." 

Note 2. Page 42. Le Naturaliste Bosc. Un Girondin 
herborisant, by Auguste Rey. — Versailles, published by 
Bernard. 

Note 3. Page 45. MSmoires de Lareveilliere-Lipeaux. 

Note 4. Page 53. Memoires de Lariveilliere-Lipeaux, 
Vol. I, page 167. 

Note 5. Page 61. I owe this quotation to the excellent 
work of Canon Miiller: Senlis et ses environs. Why can we 
not have a book written with such knowledge and skill about 
every city of France! 

Note 6. Page 82. Sainte-Beuve. Port-Royal, Vol. Ill, 
pages 510-512. 

Note 7. Page 82. The historian of Juilly is M. Charles 
Hamel. His book (Paris, Gervais, 1888) is a moving and 
very vivid picture of the college during its three centuries of 
existence. 

Note 8. Page 83. L'Oratoire de France, by Cardinal 
Perraud. 

Note 9. Page 88. Published in four volumes by Dufey, 
Paris, 1833. 

Note 10. Page 101. In regard to the history of the 
Oratory in the nineteenth century we may profitably read 
the work in which Father Chauvin has preserved the life and 
work of Father Gratry. 

Note 11. Page 105. The Louvre has just bought an 
Egyptian stele for a hundred and three thousand francs, and 
the Chateau de Maisons going to be demolished. 

307 



308 Notes 

Note 12. Page 113. We may remark that the Chateau 
de Maisons was later purchased by the State while M. Henri 
Marcel was Director of Fine Arts. 

Note 13. Page 130. It must be understood that this 
impression does not correspond to archaeological facts. 

Note 14. Page 136. The most important document about 
Thomas of Gallardon is the medical report, addressed to the 
Ministry of Police, by Doctors Pinel and Royer-CoUard, in 
1816. I owe to the courtesy of M. Gazier the opportunity 
of seeing a copy of this report. At the same time, this learned 
professor of the Sorbonne has been kind enough to place at 
my disposal a mass of pamphlets and manuscripts, some of 
which are unpublished, in regard to the seer of Gallardon: 
I have made use of these various documents in preparing this 
little essay. — In 1892, Captain Marin published an interesting 
book: Thomas Martin de Gallardon (published by Carre of 
Paris), in which he studied numerous articles which appeared 
during the Restoration, and reproduced the report of the 
doctors from a copy in the possession of M. Anatole France. 
We may add that the latter wrote a charming article in review 
of Captain Marin's book {Temps, March 13, 1892). 

Note 15. Page 165. The most extraordinary thing was 
that ingenious Legitimists later found a way to give credence 
to the prophecies of Martin of Gallardon without ceasing to 
be faithful to the Count de Chambord. In 1871, thirty-seven 
years after Martin's death, an anonymous author (the ques- 
tion of Louis XVII has been handled by a number of anony- 
mous writers) relates a conversation which M. Hersent, a 
Lazarist, had with the visionary in 1830. The latter then 
announced that the crown of France would return to its true 
heir. 

"But," said the curious Lazarist, "how will he ascend to 
the throne?" 

"Monsieur, he will ascend to the throne over corpses!" 

"Who will lead him to us?" 



Notes 309 

"The troops of the north." 

"How long will he reign?" 

"Not very long; he will leave the crown to a prince of his 
race." 

"And when will all this happen?" 

"When France shall have been sufficiently punished for 
the death of his father." 

Now see the conclusion of the anonymous writer of 1871: 
"Henri V has indeed said lately, in a letter which has been 
universally judged to be of very great importance: '/ am the 
heir'; but he has not said: '/ am the immediate heir.' If Louis 
XVII exists, his proposition is true; he is the heir, after the 
immediate heir, since, according to Martin, this true heir, 
who must come in an extraordinary manner, led by troops 
from the north, who have already frightfully punished France, 
is to reign only a very short time, and leave the crown to a 
prince of his race, who can only be Henri V." (Grave ques- 
tion. — Louis XVII est-il bien mort? — Roanne, 1871.) Cred- 
ulous persons are full of subtlety. 

Note 16. Page 167. Figaro, August 8, 1904. 

Note 17. Page 172. In regard to these charities consult 
the work of Emile Rousse: La Roche-Guyon: Chdtelains, 
Chateau et Bourg (Hachette et Cie., 1892). This book, — much 
more vivid and captivating than this kind of local monographs 
generally are, — contains a very accurate and very complete 
history of La Roche-Guyon. I have used it extensively. 
Note 18. Page 176. Chronique de Saint-Denis. 
Note 19. Page 191. Instead of og-we it would be better to 
write here arc en tiers-point, so as not to annoy the archaeolo- 
gists. But all my readers are not archaeologists and would 
not be interested in the fine distinctions among pointed arches. 
Note 20. Page 194. This history is a reprint from the 
Memoires du ComitS archSologique de Noyon (Vol. XVII); 
it is adorned with numerous illustrations which show different 
aspects of the cathedral. — The members of a recent Congress 



310 Notes 

of the French Society of Archaeology' met at Noyon. The 
Guide published for members of the Congress contains short 
and precise notes upon the different monuments which were 
■\isited. That which relates to the Cathedral of Noyon was 
written by the Director of the Society, j\I. Eugene Lefevre- 
Pontalis. 

Note 21. Page 201. The stone is broken at the end of the 
seventh line. 

Note 22. Page 206. I have taken these dates and some 
other facts from an article by ]M. Fernand Blanchard, Secre- 
tary of the Archaeological, Historical and Scientific Societ}^ of 
Soissons (1905). This pamphlet contains a ver}^ clear sum- 
mary of the history of the monument and an excellent descrip- 
tion of the ruins. 

Note 23. Page 213. These ingenious remarks on the 
flora of Saint- Jean-des-Vignes were made by M. Fernand 
Blanchard {loc. cit). 

Note 24. Page 217. Nothing has been done since 1905 
in the way of freeing from military authority the refectory of 
Saint-Jean-des-Vignes. 

Note 25. Page 220. The history of Madame de Monaco 
has been pleasingly told by Marquis Pierre de Segur, in a 
study which forms the second part of the book entitled 
La Derniere des Conde. I have borrowed from this work 
mam^ details regarding Betz which the Marquis de Segur has 
extracted from the archives of Beauvais. 

Note 26. Page 243. Musees et Monuments de France, 
1906, No. 10. 

Note 27. Page 244. The architect of the Temple of 
Friendship was called Le Roy; this is the name which is 
signed to the memorandum of the sums paid to the sculptor 
Dejoux for the casting of the group by Pigalle, — a memo- 
randum which has been published b}' 'M. Rocheblave. 

Note 28. Page 249. Since these lines were written the 
Archaeological Committee of Senlis has pubhshed a work on 



Notes 311 

the gardens of Betz by M. Gustav Macon. The gifted curator 
of the Musee Conde reproduces in this a ven'^ complete 
description of the gardens of the Princess of Monaco which 
must have been drawn up in the last half of 1792 or the first 
half of 1793. Its author is unknown. According to M. Macon, 
he was perhaps one of the writers who collaborated at that 
time in the preparation of Le Voyage piUoresque de la France; 
we might also think of IMerigot, who had just described the 
gardens of Chantilly so attractively. To this unpubhshed 
description M. Macon has added a series of notes in which he 
has collected all the information which he has found in the 
works of other historians or which he has himself discovered in 
regard to the artists who collaborated in the adornment of 
the domain of Betz. In short, he has exhausted the subject. 

Note 29. Page 266. The transformations of Chantilly 
have been studied and described by M, G. Macon (Revue de 
I' art ancien et modenie, April, 1S9S). 

Note 30. Page 293. I have profitably consulted Livry 
et son abbaye, by Abbe A. E. Genty (189S). 



INDEX 



Acarie, Madame, 75. 
Aisne River, 127. 
Amelot, Madame, 32. 
Andilly, Arnaud d', 298. 
Andr^, M., 141, 143, 147. 
Angers, David d', 19. 
AngouUme, Due d', 183. 
Anjou, Duke of, 110. 
Antin, Due d', 279. 
Appert, 167. 
Archin, 210. 
Arnault, Antoine Vincent, 

90, 93. 
Artois, Count of, 108, 110. 
Asay-le-Rideau, Chateau 

104, 
Aubert, Jean, 266. 
Auch, 182. 

Aumale, Due d', 250, 269. 
Authonne River, 133. 
Ayen, Duke of, 12. 

B 

Bailie, M. Charles, 180. 
Bailly, Father, 99. 
Bancal des Jssarts, 46, 47, 

56. 
BarthSlemy, Abbe, 244. 
Bausset, Cardinal de, 29. 



of, 



50, 



Bautain, AbbS, 101. 

Beaulieu, Leblanc de, 207 — 212. 

Beauvais, 18, 243. 

Belief onds, Marshal de, 31. 

Bel-Oeil, 223, 247. 

Berquin, 270. 

Berry, Duchess of, 154, 182. 

Berry er, 183. 

Bertault, 198. 

BSrulle, Pierre de, 74-78, 96. 

Besangon, 182, 183. 

Betz, 218-249. 

Bidault, 107. 

Billaud-Varennes,Jean Nicolas, 

92-94, 98. 
5ir^, M., 183. 
Blanchefort, Charles de, 66. 
£fois, Mile, de, 11. 
Boileau-Despreaux, Nicolas, 5, 
; 173-175, 180, 185, 254, 265. 
Boizot, 108. 

Bonaparte, Jtrome, 100. 
Bonnedame, Claude, 196-199, 

201. 
Bosc, Louis Augustin Guillaume, 

xi, 42-58. 
Bossuet, Abbe, 85. 
Bossuet, Jacques Benigne, 9, 

20, 28-41, 76, 83, 85, 102, 

110. 
Bossuet, Madame, 31-32. 
Bouilly, 270. 



313 



314 



Index 



Bourbon, Due de, 37, 266-267, 

271, 276, 278, 279. 
Bourbon, Duchess of, 220. 
Bourbon, Princess of, 219-220. 
Bourbon-CondS, Louis Joseph 

de, 218-222, 248. 
Bourdaloue, 9. 

Bourgoing, Father, 82-83, 86. 
Bourzac, De, 200-201. 
Bouvard, 183. 
Briey, Mgr. de, 35. 
Brignole, Marie Catherine de 

(see Monaco, Princess of). 
Brionne, Countess de, 223. 
Broglie, Madame de, 181. 
Brosse, Doctor de, 284. 
Brunetiere, ilf ., 39. 
Buire, Pincepre, 53. 
Bullion, Claude de, 282-289. 
Bullion, Madame de, 284-285. 
Bussy-Rabutin, 14. 
Buyster, 107, 287. 



C 



Caen, 222. 

Caisnes, Antoine de, 198. 

Carl, Abbs, 101. 

Carmontelle, 226. 

Caroline, Qu£en, 181. 

Cazin, Sieur, 235. 

Cerutti, 228-240, 243-244, 246, 

248. 
Chabot, Auguste de (see Rohan- 

Chabot, Due de) . 
Chambiges Pierre, 252. 
Champagneux, Madame (see 

Roland^ Eudora) . 



Chantal, Marie de (see Sevigne, 

Madame de). 
Chantilly, 119, 120, 177, 219- 

221, 250-280. 
Chapelain, 293. 
Charenton, 142-144, 147-148, 

153, 159, 161, 162. 
Charlemagne, 187, 192. 
Charles X, 6, 7, 164-166. 
Charolais, Mile, de, 267. 
Chartres,135,141,154, 159,168. 
Chateaubriand, Frangois Au- 
guste, Viscount de, 7, 142, 

153, 181. 
Chelles, De, 297. 
Chilperic II, 187. 
Choisy-au-Bac, 127 
Clermont, Comte de, 267. 
Clermont, Mile, de, 251, 267, 

268-280. 
Clichy, De, 297. 
Clichy-sous-Bois, 291. 
Clodion, 108. 
Coigny, Madame de, 279. 
Combes, M., 102. 
Compans, 71. 
Compiegne, 126-127, 196. 
Compiegne, Forest of, 131. 
Condi, The Great, 37, 107, 250, 

265. 
Condi, Henri Jules de, 250, 

265-266. 
Condi, Louis Joseph de Bourbon 

(see Bourbon-Condi, Louis 

Joseph de) . 
Condorcet, 179. 
Condren, Father de, 78-82, 87, 

101. 



Index 



315 



Conti, Prince de, 37. 

Coquevil, Gilles, 201. 

Corhinelli, 297. 

Corneille, Pierre, 15. 

Corot, Jean Baptiste Camille, 

70, 169. 
Coulanges, Christophe de, 292- 

296, 303, 304, 305. 
Coulanges, Madame de, 6-8, 12. 
Coulon, Gar an de, 46. 
Crecy, Chateau of, 5. 
Creil, 123. 
Creniere, Father, 96. 
Cr6py-en-Valois, 220. 
Crequi, Marquise de, 228, 231. 
CreuzS-Latouche, 46, 51, 62. 
Crussol, Julie de (see La 

Vallihre, Duchesae da). 
Cuquigny, 197. 

D 

Dammartin, 71. 

Decazes, M. tilie, 141-142, 153, 

160, 162. 
Dejoux, 243. 

Delacroix, Pierre-Joseph, 210. 
Delille, AbbS, 225. 
DemoUns,M., 73. 
Descartes, RenS, 72, 77. 
Desenne, 280. 
Despreaux, Nicolas (see 

Boileau-Despreaux, Nicolas) . 
Dijon, 44, 221, 
Dongois, M.,173. 
Dormans, Jean de, 206. 
Dotteville, Father, 90, 95. 
Dourdan, 167. 



Dreux, Forest of, 251. 

Dru, M., 133. 

Duclos, 279. 

Du Deffand, Madame, 179. 

Du Guet, Father, 83. 

Du Heron, 197. 

Dulondel, Abbe, 148, 153. 

Du Montblanc, Flandin, 267. 

Dupanloup, 183. 

DuPlessis-Liancourt (family), 

178. 
Durande, 44. 
Du Tombelle, 198. 



E 



Enlart, M., 124. 

Enville, Marquise d', 178, 17?^- 

180, 181. 
Ermenouville, 223, 226. 
Eure-et-Loir, Prefect of, 140, 

147, 159. 
Euro River, 6. 



Finelon, Bishop ofCambrai, 15, 

20, 37-38, 40. 
Fontanes, 100. 
Fontanges, Mile, de, 10. 
Fontenelle, 72. 
Fontevrault, Abbess of, 37. 
Fosses, 120. 
FouchS, Father Joseph, 92, 94- 

98, 102. 
Foucou, 108. 

Fouquet, Nicolas, 70, 284. 
Francis 1,75. 



S16 



Index 



G 

Gaillard, Father, 98. 
GaUardon, 135-137, 139, 145, 

147, 154, 159, 168. 
GaUardon, Martin of (see Mar- 
tin of GaUardon). 
Garasse, Father, 258-259, 262. 
Gautier, 254, 256, 265. 
Genlis, Madame de, 45, 251, 

268-280. 
Germigny- 1' Evique, 28-29, 

34-41. 
Gervasi, Doctor, 111. 

Girardin, M. de, 223. 

Gisors, 170, 179. 

Gobelin, AbbS, 8, 14, 16. 

Godot, Louis, 196-199. 

Goethe, 222. 

Gouthieze, 198. 

Grappin, Jean, 170-171. 

Gregory XIII, 171. 

Gregory XVI, 182. 

Gresset, 201. 

Grignan, Abbi de, 297. 

Grignan, Madame de, 8, 13, 294, 
296. 

Grivette River, 220, 223, 228, 
233, 240. 

GuercheviUe, Marquise de, 178. 

GuSrin, GiUes, 107. 

GuiUebert, Madame, 45. 



Hamel, Charles, 82, 96, 97. 
Hamon, 27. 
Harcourt, Due d', 222. 



Harlay, M. de, 83. 
Haute-Isle, 173-175, 180. 
Hautile (see Haute-Isle). 
Henry II, 1. 
Henry IV, 63, 178, 252, 253, 

263, 264. 
Herbois, Collot d', 96. 
Hericourt, Canon, 85-86. 
Houdon, 108. 
Hugh Capet, 187. 
Hugo, Victor, 180, 183, 281, 

290. 



Ile-de-France, 119, 126. 
Ingres, 21. 

Issarts, Bancal des (see Bancal 
des Issarts). 



Jandun, Jean de, 60, 62. 
Jourdain, Nicolas, 68-69. 
Juilly, 71-103. 
Jurieu, 40. 
Jussieu, M. de, 44, 45. 

K 

Kent, William, 223, 225. 



La Beaumelle, 16. 
La Borde, Jean Joseph de, 223. 
La Briffe, Madame de, 32. 
La Bruyere, 9, 254. 



Index 



317 



La Colline, 222. 

Lacordaire, 101. 

Lafayette, 113. 

La Fert^-Milon, 18-27. 

Laffitte, 106. 

La Fontaine, Claude de, 86. 

La Fontaine, Jean de, 24-25, 

85-86, 102, 173, 175, 255, 

257, 297, 300. 
Lamartine, Alphonse, 180, 181, 

183-185, 300. 
Lamennais, 100-102, 183. 
Lamoignon, Charles de, 282. 
Lancelot, 26-27. 
Lannes, 113. 
Laperruque, M., 137, 139-141, 

144, 147, 154, 158. 
Larborde, Count de, 224. 
Larcher, President, 32. 
LarSveilliere-L6peaux, 52-54, 

55, 57. 
Larive, 93. 

La Riviere, Perrette de, 178. 
La Roche (see La Roche- 

Guyon) . 
La Roche, Guys de, 177. 
La Rochefoucauld, Alexander 

de, 178. 
La Rocheofucauld, Sosthine de, 

148. 
La Roche-Guyon, 171, 172, 

176-185. 
La Rochelle, 92. 
Larousse, 61. 
Lasserre, M., 224. 
La Tour, Father de, 84. 
Lauzun, Due de, 275. 
Lavalette, Count de, 155. 



La Valette, Father de, 87. 

La Valliere, Duchesse de, 288- 

289. 
Lavater, 49. 

La Verriere, Siguier de, 295. 
Leczinska, Marie, 279. 
Le Dieu, Abbe, 29-30, 32, 38. 
Lefevre-Pontalis, Eugene 193- 

194, 197. 
Le Gendre, 222, 
Le MaUre, Antoine, 26-27. 
Lemaltre, Jules, 224. 
Le Moulin-Joli, 223, 225. 
Le Notre, AndrS, 4, 11, 32, 225, 

265. 
Leclerc, Jean Baptiste, 52. 
Le Roy, 244. 

L'Espinasse, Mile, de, 179. 
Les Rochers, 297, 301. 
Letourneur, Mile., 53. 
Le Vasseur, Jacques, 192-193, 

202. 
Levignen, Lords of, 220. 
Lieu-Restaur^, 133-134. 
Ligne, Prince de, 223, 246-247. 
Ligny, M. de, 34. 
Limours, 223. 
Livry, Abbey of, 291-306. 
Livry-en-l'Aulnoye, 291. 
Loire River, 172. 
Lombois, Father, 95. 
Longpont, 129. 

Longueil,Ren6 de, 109-110, 282. 
Longueil-sous-Thourotte, 127- 

128. 
Louis XII, 66-67. 
Louis XIII, 79, 252, 254, 282, 

283, 285, 286, 289. 



318 



Index 



Louis XIV, 4, 6-13, 110. 
Louis XV, 74, 178, 266-268, 

276. 
Louis XVI, 99, 163, 196, 222. 
Louis XVII, 164-165, 167. 
Louis XVIII, 96, 97, 137-142, 

144-145, 148, 152-160, 163- 

166. 
Louvet, Madame, 56. 
Louvigny, Madame de, 16. 
Louvres, 119-120. 
Lucchesi- Pali, Count, 182. 
Ludres, Mile, de, 11. 
Luzarches, 120. 

M 

Macon, Gustav, 278. 
Maine, Due de, 37. 
Maintenon, Ch&teau of, 3-17. 
Maintenon, Madame de, 3, 5- 

17. 
Maisons, CMteau de, 104^113. 
Maisons, Marquis de (see Lotv- 

gueil, RenS de) . 
Maisons, President de, 111-113. 
Malebranche, Nicolas, 38, 72- 

74, 77, 99, 102. 
Malesherbes, 45. 
Malherbe, Frangois de, 253, 254, 

255. 
Malortie, Demoiselles, 51, 55. 
Mandar, Father, 91. 
Mansart, Francois, 105, 107, 

109, 265, 266. 
Mantes (Mantes-la-Jolie), 169, 

171, 172. 
Marat, 93. 



Marcellus, M. de, 142. 
Marchangy, 183. 
Maricourt, AbbS, 101. 
Maricourt, Viscount of, 167. 
Marley-la-ViUe, 120. 
Marne River, 25, 34r-35, 38, 

39, 119, 123. 
Marot, Clement, 85. 
Martin, Dr. Antoine, 167. 
Martin of Gallardon, xi, 136- 

168. 
Martin, Thomas Ignatius (see 

Martin of Gallardon). 
Massillon, 91. 
Masuyer, 54. 
Maule, 282. 
Maupassant, De, 270. 
Maupertuis, 223. 
Mauroy, 198. 
Mayer, M. de, 235. 
Meaux, 28-33, 41, 71, 99, 206, 

293. 
Meaux, M. de (see Bossuet, 

Jacqu^ Binigne). 
MSdicis, Marie de, 282-283. 
Melun, Due de, 251, 267-280. 
Menage, 293. 
M^r^ville, 224. 
Merimee, 270. 
Merson, Olivier, 251, 261. 
Mesnard, Father, 305, 
Michelet, 47. 

Mignard, Nicolas, 6, 13, 177. 
Mique, 244. 
Mirabeau, 231. 
Monaco, Princess of, 218-223, 

228, 231-235, 237, 239, 241, 

242, 248. 



Index 



319 



Montaigne, 297. 
Montalemhert, 183. 
Montataire, 123. 
Montespan, Madame de, 6-11, 

37. 
Montesquieu, 278. 
Montesquiou, M. de, 223. 
Montmorency, 49. 
Montmorency, Anne de, 251, 

252. 
Montmorency, Duchess of (see 

Orsini, Marie Felice). 
Montmorency, Forest of, 42- 

44, 52-54. 
Montmorency, Henri I de, 252. 
Montmorency, Henri II de, 250- 

253, 259. 
Montmorency, Mathieu de, 163, 

184. 
Montpensier, Mile, de, 110, 275. 
Morel, 226. 
Morienval, 132. 
Moulins, Marie des, 18. 
Montauban, 21. 
Mousseaux, 226. 

N 

Nantouillet, 71. 

Napoleon Bonaparte, 88, 94, 96, 

100, 137, 208. 
Nattier, Jean Marc, 177, 277, 

278. 
Naundorff, 164, 167-168. 
Noailles, Cardinal de, 37. 
Nodier, Charles, 97. 
Nogent-les-Vierges, 123-125. 
Nonette River, 69. 



Noyon, 116, 122, 127, 130, 186- 
203, 204. 



O 



Ocre River, 135. 

Oise River, xi, 116, 119, 120- 

131, 191, 204. 
Olier, M., 79. 
Orleans, Gaston d', 252. 
Orleans, Louis of, 22, 
Orsini, Marie FSlice {"Sylvie"), 

250, 251, 252, 259, 269, 277. 
Otranto, Duke of, 96-97, 99, 

102. 
Ourcq River, 19, 24, 25, 220. 
Ourscamp, 129. 



Pache, 54. 

Parent, Bourgeois, 20. 

Patin, Guy, 286. 

Pavin, 296. 

Pecuchet, 183. 

Pelleton, 198. 

Perelle, 250. 

Peronne, 53. 

Perraud, Cardinal, 83, 101. 

Perrault, Abbe, 165. 

Petetot, Father, 101. 

Petion, 54. 

Petit, Father, 88-90. 

Piet, M., 142. 

Pigalle, 242. 

Pilastre, Urbain, 52. 

Pinel, Dr., 142, 144-152. 

Pius VIII, 182. 



320 



Index 



Pleneuf, Agnes de (see Prie, 

Marquise de). 
Plessis, M. du, 304. 
Poitiers, Diane de, 1. 
Pompadour, Madame de, 5, 

242. 
Pomponne, M. de, 297, 298, 

304. 
Pontpoint, 126. 
Pont-Sainte-Maxence, 125-126. 
Port-Royal des Champs, 18, 

26-27, 81-82, 161, 
Prie, Marquise de, 266, 267. 
Prioleau, Father, 91. 
Puisieulx-Sillery, Marquise de, 

268. 



Q 



Quesnel, Father, 83. 

R 

Racan, M. de, 253, 254. 
Racine, Jean (1), 18. 
Racine, Jean (2), 5, 12, 18-27. 
Rambaud, Madame de, 167. 
Rambouillet, 7, 164. 
Rapin, Father, 229. 
RSaux, Tallemant des, 282. 
Rebelliau, M., 28-29, 39, 41. 
RScamier, Madame de, 181, 182. 
Reneufve, 198. 
Retz, Forest of, 24. 
Rey, M. Auguste, 42, 44. 
Rheim^, Archbishop of, 148, 153. 
Richelieu, Cardinal, 81, 283- 
286. 



Rieux, 125. 

Rigaud, Hyacinthe, 29, 38. 

Riviere, Antoine, 18. 

Riviere, Marie (Racine), 18. 

Roberdeau, L., 96. 

Robert, Hubert, 222, 223, 232, 

234, 241. 
Robespierre, 53, 93, 95. 
Rocheblave, M., 242. 
Rochejacquelin, Marquis de la, 

164. 
Rohan-Chabot, Due de, 180-185. 
Rohan (family), 178, 180. 
Roland, Eudora, 46, 48, 51, 54- 

55, 57. 
Roland, M., 46, 47, 50-51. 
Roland, Madame, 46-52, 54, 55. 
Rosny, 171, 172. 
Rouen, 51. 
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 43, 44, 

50, 52, 53, 91, 98, 224, 230. 
Royaumont, 214. 
Royer-Collard, Antoine Athan- 

ase, 143-152, 154, 163. 
Rozier, 53. 



S 



Saint Amant, 254. 
Saint Arnoult, 167. 
Saint Cyr, 12, 13. 
Sainte-Beuve, 81, 254. 
Sainte-Marthe, Father de, 83- 

84. 
Sainte P^lagie, 51. 
Sainte Radegonde, 42-44, 49- 

54, 56-67. 
Saint-Jean-aux-Bois, 131-132. 



Index 



321 



Saint-Leu-d' Esserent, 116, 
121-122. 

Saint Medard, 192. 

Saint- Simon, 5, 14, 16, 84. 

Saint Sulpice, 181. 

Saint Victor, Abbey of, 43. 

Saint Vincent de Paul, 75. 

Salinis, Abbe de, 100, 101. 

Samsaulieu, Max, 207. 

Sangin, Denis, 295, 296. 

Sangin, Louis, 295. 

Santeul, 38. 

Sarazin, Jacques, 74, 107, 287, 
289. 

Sault, Countess de, 282-283. 

Saurin, Joseph, 41. 

Scarron, Madame (see Main- 
tenon, Madame de). 

Scherer, 16. 

Sconins, The, 21. 

Scorbiac, AbbS de, 100, 101. 

Scribe, 88. 

SSgur, M. de, 243. 

Seine River, 169, 172, 176, 191. 

SenUs, 59-70, 134. 

Sens, Mile, de, 267, 279. 

SSrent, Mile, de, 181. 

Sericourt, M. de, 26-27. 

Sevignk, M. de, 293-294. 

SSvignS, Madame de, 3, 6, 8-10, 
13, 173, 292-306. 

Sillys, The, 178. 

Silvy, M., 161-162, 165. 

Soissons, xi, 204-217. 

Soyecourt, Marquis of, 110. 



Taine, 24, 99. 



Tallemant, 252, 258, 284. 
Temple, Lord Granville, 226. 
Theophile, 250, 251, 253-265, 

269, 277. 
Thianges, Madame de, 6. 
Thieux, 71. 
Thomassin, 80. 

Thouin, AndrS, 45, 51, 52, 57. 
Thourotte, 128-129. 
Thyrsis, 263. 
Toulouse, Comte de, 37. 
Tournai, 194. 
Tracy, Madame de, 279. 
Tracy-le-Val, 131. 
Tricomini, 110. 
Troy, De, 177. 
Troyes, Bishop of, 32. 
Truyart, Marie Francoise, 68- 

69. 
Tschoudy, Baron de, 226-227. 
Turgot, 179. 



Valentinois, Duchess of (see 
Montespan, Madame de). 

Van Obstal, 107. 

Venette, 126. 

Verberie, 126. 

Vernet, De, 224. 

Versailles, 4, 5, 9, 10, 37, 57, 
92, 168, 281. 

Versailles, Bishop of, 140, 147. 

Vetheuil, 170-172. 

Vexin, The, 171. 

Vez, Chateau of, 133. 

Viau, TMophile de (see TM- 



32^ 



Index 



Viel, Father, 90. 
Villars, Madame de, 111. 
Villars, Marshal de, 37. 
Villeneuve, 296. 
Villers-Cotterets, Forest 

129. 
Villers-Saint-Paul, 125. 
Vineuil, 266. 
Vitart, Nicolas, 26. 
Vitet, 193. 
Voise River, 135. 



of, 



Voltaire, Franqois MarieAroult, 

110-113, 179, 288. 
Vouet, 287, 288. 

W 

Wallet, Leonard, 210, 211. 
Walpole, Horace, 179, 226. 
Watelet, 223, 225. 
Wideville, Chateau of, 281-290. 
Winslow, Jacques BSnigne, 41. 
Wurts, Abbe, 160. 



BD 



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